Early Easter helps BAA traffic rise 4pc in March BAA said 8.6 million passengers travelled through its airports at Heathrow, Stansted, Southampton, Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow. The company said in statement that 5.7 million passengers passed through London Heathrow, helped by strong growth to the emerging market countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China. Traffic to and from Brazil has increased 62.3pc. Mr Matthews said reaching the 70m mark at Heathrow "demonstrated the resilience of the airport in an otherwise challenging economic environment." However, he warned: "Heathrow continues to operate at 99.2pc capacity - placing constraints on airlines" ability to introduce new flights to the emerging economies which are so vital to UK economic growth." In recent week there have been suggestions that government opposition to building a third runway at Heathrow has weakened as the economy continues to struggle. BAA said Heathrow's performance was "particularly notable for the 4.2 percentage point increase in load factor" - how full planes leaving the airport are - to 73.4pc compared to March last year. The increase was also helped by Easter being earlier this year, with a substantial proportion of pre-Easter traffic falling in March rather than in April last year.