Strong demand for air travel over the Christmas and New Year helped to boost passenger numbers at the airports owned by BAA last month.

BAA said that its seven British airports handled a total of 9.4 million passengers in December, a 15.3% rise on a year ago.

For the whole of 2002, passenger numbers were 126.6 million, a 3.9% rise on the year before and a 2.3% increase on 2000.

London's Stansted saw the largest growth in numbers, thanks largely to the rapid expansion of the low-cost airlines which use the airport.

Over 2002, Stansted traffic grew by 17.5%, Heathrow added 4.3%, but Gatwick saw a 5.1% decline.

Neither Heathrow nor Gatwick have seen passenger numbers return to the levels seen before the September 11 terror attacks in 2001 threw the aviation industry into disarray.

"The main reason for the fall in traffic at Heathrow and Gatwick against 2000 is the continued weakness in traffic in the North Atlantic market," BAA said in a statement.

BAA shares closed 2p lower at 491p on Monday.