Heathrow airport suffered a fall in passenger traffic last month as a direct result of the damaging dispute involving British Airways, its caterer Gate Gourmet and the Transport and General Workers Union.

The fall in passenger volumes at Britain's biggest airport in August came just a month after Heathrow felt the after-shock of two successive terrorist attacks in London, when the number of travellers fell by 0.6 per cent to just under 6.5 million.

Last month, the number of fliers using Heathrow for their journey fell by 3 per cent to just over 6.1 million. This is the second successive month where Heathrow has been the only airport operated by the British Airports Authority to experience a fall in passenger volumes.

BAA said today that the six other airports it runs, including Gatwick and Stansted, all saw volumes rise, helping it to post a 0.5 per cent increase in traffic to 14.3 million passengers in August.

Heathrow ground to a halt for an entire weekend last month following an unofficial sympathy strike by ground staff working for British Airways.

About 1,000 BA staff walked out after Gate Gourmet, the airline's sole catering provider, sacked 670 staff as part of its efforts to reform working practices and keep afloat financially.

The strike caused BA to cancel 700 flights and resulted in delays for 100,000 passengers. The dispute, which is still not fully resolved, is expected to cost BA at least £40 million in additional costs.

As it reported that total "air transport movements" fell by 0.7 per cent at Heathrow last month as a result of the cancellations, BAA said: "Among individual airports all except Heathrow recorded increased traffic in August.

"At Heathrow the large number of BA cancellations over the weekend of August 12, 13, combined with the aftermath of the London attacks in July contributed to a 3 per cent drop in passengers."

Total air transport movements increased by 4 per cent overall at BAA's airports.

Traffic through Stansted rose by 4.2 per cent and increased by 30 per cent at Southampton. In Scotland, Edinburgh and Aberdeen recorded passenger growth of 6.6 per cent and 6.9 per cent, respectively, with Glasgow increasing year on year volumes by 1.5 per cent.

Shares in BAA, which in March reported annual pre-tax profits of £733 million, lost 4p to 619p, valuing the FTSE 100 group at more than £6.7 billion

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