The 1.5 million passenger barrier has been broken for the first time ever at a Scottish airport as Edinburgh Airport recorded its busiest ever month on record.

A total of 1,501,988 people passed through Edinburgh Airport in July 2018 – an increase of 6.3% on the same month last year, with growth in both domestic and international markets.

Edinburgh Airport is owned by Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), which also owns Gatwick Airport and the Port of Melbourne.

Edinburgh Airport CEO Gordon Dewar said: “These are fantastic figures for the airport, for Edinburgh and for Scotland, and they show an increase in passenger demand of 60% over the past 5 years – that is phenomenal growth and easily makes us one of Europe’s fastest growing airports.

“That growth is something we should be proud of as it delivers wide-ranging benefits for the country through job creation, tourism spend and business growth, but it also means we need to keep growing our infrastructure and build that additional capacity to cater for those increased numbers.

“We have invested huge sums already to keep up with that demand and are now for the first time in a position where we’re ahead of that curve thanks to a terminal expansion which will see us grow our passenger capacity to more than 17 million.

“That headroom is welcome and is a position we want to stay in and aim to do so through continued investment.

“Part of that wider picture is the need for improvements to the external infrastructure as well and that is an ongoing discussion with various partners as we must change and grow to maximise the opportunities that the airport brings.

“This extension is the beginning of a longer period of investment in our airport.

“Growth is our main strategic challenge and we will develop in order to enable growth for Edinburgh and Scotland as a whole.”