British airports operator BAA says February brought the first increase in its total passenger traffic since the September 11th attacks in the United States.
BAA said the number of passengers handled at its seven British airports was 8.2 million last month, a rise of 0.3 per cent on the same period a year earlier.
Although the key North Atlantic market remained weak, the rate of decline slowed, said BAA, which owns London's Heathrow airport, the world's busiest international airport.
Demand for air travel slumped after hijacked planes smashed into New York and Washington in September, forcing airlines to lay off thousands of workers, ground aircraft and cut flights. The sluggish world economy compounded the industry downturn.
North Atlantic passenger traffic fell 7.7 per cent on the same month a year earlier and other long-haul traffic was down by 1.4 per cent. The figures showed a continuing improvement each month from October's 31.3 per cent drop, said BAA.
The growth area is in short-haul routes where the rapidly expanding no-frills carriers are stimulating demand for air travel with cheap tickets and wooing customers away from the full-service carriers such as British Airways.
BAA said Edinburgh was up 19.1 per cent, Glasgow gained 16.4 per cent and London's Stansted jumped 16.4 per cent year-on-year, underpinned by the low-cost airlines such as easyJet, Ryanair and Go.
Heathrow was down 0.1 per cent. London's Gatwick was down 10.8 per cent but the fall was less than in January and December.