BAA airports, including Stansted, Heathrow and Gatwick, recorded an overall increase of 18 per cent in traffic to Hong Kong and China in January, the operator has announced.

Edinburgh Airport, with a 3.9 per cent passenger growth, was the best performer in the BAA stable during January, while Gatwick recorded an increase of one per cent.

For the 12-month period from February 2007 to January 2008, a UK increase in traffic of 1.3 per cent was recorded across all BAA airports compared with the previous 12 months.

While traffic to the Asian destinations of Hong Kong and China rose by percentages in double figures, scheduled traffic to Europe and the north Atlantic both dipped, by 1.7 per cent and 1.4 per cent respectively across UK airports operated by BAA.

In total, 10.1 million passengers were handled at BAA's UK airports during January this year, an 800,000-passenger fall on the figures for December 2007.

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