Edinburgh Airport has announced it handled almost a million passengers in April — but this was 26% fewer than in the same month in 2019.

The total throughput of 931,522 passengers was 326,832 down on the 1,258,354 handled three years ago before the pandemic brought the airport to a virtual two-year standstill.

The airport said the latest data “marks a significant improvement in the aviation sector as numbers rebounded strongly against the same months during the pandemic.”

In April 2020, just weeks into lockdown, just 5,445 passengers travelled through the airport.

Gordon Dewar, chief executive, said: “It was, of course, a challenging few weeks and we are quite happy with the way the airport operation performed as it saw its busiest period in almost three years.

“A big thank you must go to our workforce and others across the campus who welcomed and greeted that challenge with gusto, and to our passengers who worked with us to prepare for their trip and showed patience and understanding throughout.

“As ever there are lessons we can learn and improvements we can make as we head into the even busier summer season.

“We would like to remind passengers that we will face some challenges and again ask them to continue to work with us by planning ahead and ensuring they know what they need to do before they get here, and we will continue to do everything we can to get them through the airport quickly and comfortably.”