The British Airports Authority (BAA) has reported that the recent decline in passenger numbers slowed in July.

The BAA's seven airports - which include Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted - saw traffic numbers in July down 2.4% from the same month last year.

However, this decline is a marked improvement on the year-on-year decrease of 5.9% seen in June and 7.3% in May.

BAA has attributed the stabilisation to a rise in long-haul flights and Heathrow airport enjoying its third-busiest month on record - with passenger numbers of 6.4m, up 0.9% from the year before.