The UK's major airports continued their recovery last month as people chose to fly away for Christmas and New Year, figures today showed.

Despite the impact of the September 11 atrocities, airports operator BAA said 8.2 million passengers passed through its seven airports in the UK in December.

This was just 6.4% down on December 2000, continuing the gradual recovery seen at the UK's major airports since the terrorist attacks in the United States.

And BAA said the strongest recovery in the month came on North Atlantic and other long-haul routes, those most affected by the fall-out from the tragedy.

North Atlantic traffic was down 13% in December compared with the same month the year before, a marked improvement on a 26.1% year-on-year fall in November.

Other long-haul routes registered a 6% drop last month.

BAA said today's figures represented "continued progress" on the figures seen in October and November and were down to "very strong" Christmas traffic.

"In the seven days ending December 31, passenger numbers were similar to last year," the group said.

The figures will add to cautious optimism about the airline sector, coming a week after improved figures from British Airways and Dutch carrier KLM.

Today, BAA said European charter traffic last month was virtually unchanged on December 2000 while European scheduled traffic dipped by 6.3%.

The improvement in long-haul traffic led to better figures for Heathrow and Gatwick, with passenger numbers at Heathrow down 6.8% in December compared with a year-on-year fall of 13.8% in November.

Gatwick also improved, falling 16.4% last month compared to a decline of 19.4% in November.

Heathrow handled 60.4 million passengers and Gatwick 31.4 million.