Passenger traffic at Heathrow broke previous records during August as the UK’s busiest airport benefited from a strong leisure market and its role as an international hub but numbers continued to slide across the country as a whole.

In August, Heathrow handled 6.4m passengers, 0.3 per cent more than in 2008, according to the operator BAA as travellers refused to abandon their holidays in spite of the economic downturn.