July sees busiest ever month for a Scottish airport

The data shows 1,332,282 passengers passed through the airport in July - a 9.6 per cent year-on-year rise.

Glasgow Airport also saw passenger numbers smash through the one million mark, with 1,018,433 boarding flights over the same four week period - a rise of 6.4 per cent on a year ago.

Its numbers are slowly returning to the 2006 highs seen before the financial crisis, when the annual figure topped 8.8 million passengers.

However, Aberdeen International Airport has continued its decline and saw passenger numbers drop by nearly 16 per cent, with 293,136 people using the airport in July.

International and domestic traffic was down 8.4 per cent and 18.7 per cent respectively, with helicopter traffic also down 22.3 per cent.

The airport bosses said they were pushing ahead with £20 million plans to extend the existing terminal despite the obvious effects of the North Sea oil downturn.

Meanwhile, the head of Edinburgh Airport said that despite the growth at his hub, there was evidence the Brexit vote had damaged the aviation business which highlighted the need for a cut in Air Passenger Duty.

The SNP government has already said it will cut the duty by 50 per cent between 2018 and 2021.

While domestic passenger numbers at Edinburgh actually fell 3.6 per cent in 2016 compared with 2015, the airport saw an 18.5 per cent increase on international passengers over the period.

Edinbugh Airport chief executive Gordon Dewar said: “European airports’ growth for the first half of the year is at 4.9 per cent; our growth over same six-month period compared to the last year is more than double that.

“Despite our encouraging growth, there is evidence of damage to the aviation business that has followed the Brexit vote - this further highlights the need to reduce Air Passenger Duty as soon as possible.

“Cutting APD will be a strong demonstration of Scotland’s international ambitions. It will send a powerful signal to the global airline market that Scotland is most definitely open for business, and would go some way to counter the negative business impact of the UK’s plans to leave the EU.”