Passenger numbers at UK airports are up 1.4 million but still fall 8% short of 2007 figures.
UK airports handled 221 million passengers during 2012 according to figures published by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), an increase of 0.6% on 2011.
London airports grew by 1.3 million and regional airports by 0.1 million.
However, passenger numbers for 2012 were still 8% below 2007’s peak of almost 240 million passengers. Business passengers using the UK’s airports fell by 4%.
Iain Osborne, director of regulatory policy at the CAA, said: "Whilst our statistics show aviation performance in the UK continues to recover, the overall picture means passenger numbers in the UK are still some way short of their 2007 peak.
"There are still significant challenges ahead for the aviation industry."
Passengers on charter flights continued to drop, down 7.9% to 20.4 million in 2012 compared to 2011 while scheduled flights saw a 1.5% increase in passengers.
Manchester saw the largest rise in terms of passenger numbers, with an increase of 4.5% up to 19.7 million.
While Liverpool registered the biggest loss in passengers down 15% to 4.5 million.
Provisional data from the CAA’s 2012 Passenger Survey – covering Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, Manchester, Birmingham and East Midlands – shows that business passenger numbers fell by 4%.
Holiday passengers grew by 4% and passengers travelling to visit friends and relatives (VFR) were flat compared to 2011.
The majority of UK airport passengers were bound for, or arriving from, Europe – representing an increase of 1% from 2011.
The largest increase was in the number of passengers travelling to and from Italy, with an increase of 6% while the largest fall in passengers was those travelling to and from Ireland, which fell by 2%.
Passengers going to and from North America were up 1.9% to 20.4 million.
Passengers travelling to and from international destinations outside Europe and North America fell by 0.4% but within this passengers travelling to mainland China were up 13% to 746,000.
In 2012, 20 million passengers took UK domestic flights, representing a fall of 0.7% on 2011.
