11 March 2013 at 09.10 GMT
Adjusting for the fact that 2012 was a leap year, traffic was up 4.6%.
The rise was due in part to the merger of BA and BMI, which contributed to a 1.8% increase in the average number of seats per aircraft to 198.4 seats, and a 2.4 percentage point increase in load factor to 69.6%.
European traffic performed well, up 4.4%, with Italy up by 11.6%, Portugal 9%, Germany 8.2% but with Greece down by 7.4%.
Of the Bric economies, traffic was up 29.8% for China, 4.1% to India and 3.1% to Russia. The only reduction was an 8.3% drop in traffic with Brazil, resulting in an overall increase in Bric traffic of 5.1%.
Middle Eastern traffic rose by 6.2% but was down to North America (1.9%), Latin America (4.6%) and Africa (11.7%).
Chief executive Colin Matthews, said: "This month's figures reflect larger, fuller aircraft being used at Heathrow, not the addition of new routes to emerging economies which are so vital to UK trade, jobs and economic growth."
British airways and BMI merged together to create a stronger organisation. This negotiation showed an increase in seats per aircraft and an increase in the load factor. For customers, this has benefited as new long haul slots will be put in place as a result of this take over. 42 slots will be allocated and BMI will be the first intercontinental route using a BMI slow (Service to Seoul), which will be launched in December. There are also other destinations looking to introduce this route such as Vietnam and Malaysia. These are direct services to fast growing cities. However, will this benefit Airports at maximum capacity? How busy will airports be in the future if organisations are merging and scheduling more flights? How will competitors compete with such a big organisation? These are questions to take into account but there are many other advantages to this. British Airways see this as an opportunity to benefit the economy as well creating more jobs and growth! Current vacancies are in place at the moment!
It is really good to see that there are some positive effects of the two airlines merging. However the questions you've raised Darmen are very relevant, how will the airports cope with this increase at their maximum capacity, they can not afford to push it anymore. The problems with this also are that when there is problems such as snow many of the flights have to be cancelled especially with British Airways due to their full schedule. So pushing this even more will cause many problems. I have seen quite a lot of their vacancies and there are many going so that is good for jobs, definitely in a big company!! Hopefully it works well.
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