OREANDA-NEWS. 4.9 million passengers passed through Heathrow in February 2014, up 1% on the previous year

Seats per aircraft increased 1.6%, whilst load factors decreased 0.3 percentage points on last year to 69.3%. Passengers per aircraft increased 1.1% to 139.6.

BRIC passengers were up 2.5%, with China increasing 14.8% and India up 2.2%.

February also saw Heathrow announce a new four times a week route to Bogota, operated by Avianca - the first direct connection from the UK to Colombia in nine years.

Heathrow CEO Colin Matthews said:

“The continued growth in traffic to emerging markets reflects the need to capitalise on regular, direct links to fast growing economies which bring trade and growth to the UK. We would like to welcome more new routes like the Heathrow-Colombia flights starting this summer, but a lack of hub airport capacity means we are less well connected than we could be.”