The number of passengers travelling through British airport terminals owned by British Aviation Authority(BAA) climbed 8.1 per cent last month.
However, growth in traffic from Irish airports fell off, with the number of passengers from the State climbing just 1.5 per cent to 577,000 from the same period last year.
Traffic at Stansted rose 14 per cent to 1.53 million passengers, and traffic through Gatwick edged up 0.4 per cent, the first gain since the terrorist attacks on the United States in September last year.
The number of passengers travelling through Heathrow rose 12 per cent from a year ago to 5.72 million in September.
The company's seven airports handled 12.1 million passengers in September. Domestic travel grew by 13 per cent and European scheduled traffic rose 7.8 per cent.
North Atlantic passenger numbers rose 15 per cent. European charter passenger numbers climbed 3.3 per cent from a year ago.
