The annual passenger total at Stansted Airport has broken through the 18million mark for the first time in more than two years.

The airport today reported its busiest April since 2008, with more than 1.72million passenges passing through its termnal during the month.

This represented a 10.7 per cent increase on the same month last year, with the comparison helped by this year’s later Easter together with the launch of a number of new routes in this year’s summer schedules.

However, the rolling annual total 18.16m represented growth of 3.4 per cent compared with the previous 12 months, and the first time the figure has topped 18m since December 2011.

Andrew Harrison, managing director at Stansted Airport, said: “To see Stansted experience its busiest April for six years and to once again break through the 18m passengers a year barrier is a key milestone in our growth plans for the airport, which are already providing people with more choice of destinations and increased flight frequency.

“We enjoyed a very busy Easter and start to the summer season as our airline partners launched even more new services across Europe and encouraged more passengers to make Stansted their airport of choice.

“We are also continuing our work to develop long-haul services from Stansted, and were delighted by the recent announcement that Thomas Cook is to launch new services to the USA and Mexico next summer.”

He added: “The level of growth we’re seeing is encouraging and strongly believe Stansted has a vital role over the next 10 to 15 years in supporting economic growth and activity.

“This is an important year for our industry as we await the Government’s response to the Airport Commission’s recommendations on how to make the best use of existing capacity before any new runway can be built.

“If priority is given to improvements to rail links from London to Stansted to provide faster connections we could serve more of the London market, and provide benefits to a much wider group of passengers.”