Stansted Airport celebrated another landmark in its rapid development today after handling 20 million passengers in a year for the first time.
The Essex site - the fourth biggest airport in Britain - reached the milestone after numbers rose by almost 7 per cent on a year earlier in May.
The boom in low-cost air travel has helped Stansted to the annual 20 million mark, which was reached with a flight early today. In contrast, Stansted handled million passengers during the 1998/99 financial year. Stansted is a major destination for Ryanair flights from Ireland.
BAA, which owns Stansted and six other British airports, also said that annual passenger numbers at Heathrow had passed 65 million for the first time.
The west London airport has seen a strong recovery from depressed figures last year, with numbers for May up by 12.4 per cent to 5.53 million.
BAA also reported strong growth at Gatwick - up 2.9 per cent in the month to 2.69 million passengers - and Southampton, where strong recent growth continued with a 24.8 per cent leap in figures for May to almost 130,000.