BAA, which owns Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen airports, said that the growth of budget airlines had increased business.

Edinburgh showed a huge rise of more than 15% during July, with Glasgow jumping 6.5%.

Overall, BAA's Scottish airports reported a total increase of 8.4% in passenger numbers to 1.8 million.

Passenger numbers are up on last year

The figures show that not only has air travel has recovered from the shock of September last year, but is actually more popular than it was in July 2001.

The recovery in air transport appears to be well under way, said BAA - whose airports also include Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted, near London.

It said domestic traffic was up 10%, with Glasgow, Edinburgh and Stansted, in particular, benefiting from the trend.

These airports have benefited from the continuing boom in low-cost airlines, which appear to be creating new demand for air travel, as well as winning passengers from the more established carriers.

But the good news for Edinburgh and Glasgow was in contrast to the figures from BAA's other Scottish airport, Aberdeen.

It had a fall of 1.7% in passenger numbers.

At Gatwick, passenger numbers were down 7.7% on the previous year but BAA said this was the airport's second best result since September 2001.

Holiday period

In July, 12.9 million passengers passed through BAA's airports, up 0.4% on last year and an improvement on the 11.6 million recorded in June 2002.

BAA added that there had been a gradual improvement in the rate of increase in traffic as the month progressed, bolstered by the main holiday period getting under way.

But the group also showed how it continued to feel the pinch of the bumpy long-haul market.

Passenger numbers at Heathrow dipped 0.1%, North Atlantic traffic was down 9.1% and other long-haul routes reported a 5.1% fall.

The market has been rocked by the events of September 11 as well as the global economic downturn and BAA said recovery "remained slow".