Cargo volumes grew at their fastest ever rates in July at Heathrow Airport with a 15.1 per cent year-on-year growth to 143,259 tonnes.

American Airlines Cargo helped boost volumes by 44 per cent, increasing trade with North America by 16 per cent, while East Asian cargo increased 14 per cent with strong growth to China, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Volumes were up 10 per cent to 966,580 tonnes between January and July and by 7.7 per cent to 1.6 million tonnes between August 2016 and July 2017.

Heathrow Airport chief executive officer, John Holland-Kaye says: “Britain’s global gateway is hard at work this summer holiday season – July was the best month in Heathrow’s history. With more passengers than ever and trade growing at the fastest rate ever recorded, Heathrow is helping Britain show the world our country is open for business.”

Heathrow also broke passenger numbers, welcoming 7.5 million in July, up 1.2 per cent and an average of 243,000 per day, the equivalent of the population of the city of Plymouth every day.