London's Heathrow Airport saw a record 76 million passengers in 2016, up 1% on the previous year.
The UK's busiest airport said the growth was driven by the use of larger aircraft, with around 40% of long-haul passengers travelling on new models such as the Airbus A380 and A350 and Boeing's 787 Dreamliner.
This is compared with around a quarter in 2015.
The airport's plan to build a third runway was chosen in October as the UK government's preferred option for increasing capacity in south-east England.
Heathrow's passenger numbers for flights to or from the Middle East rose by 8.8%, the Asia-Pacific market was up 2.8% and demand for European flights increased by 1.8%.
But domestic travel within the UK from the west London hub was down by 9.6%.
The amount of cargo transferred through the airport increased by 3%, while the total number of flights rose by 0.2% to 473,231.
