London's flagship airport welcomed almost seven million passengers last month, as the travel sector continued its recovery from the COVID-19 crisis.

In fact, data shows that October saw only 32,000 fewer travellers than in October 2019, the year before the global health crisis started.

Heathrow is now the fourth busiest airport in the world and has recently seen the introduction of 11 new routes.

At present, Heathrow serves 239 destinations in 89 countries around the world, while long-haul destinations to places such as Dubai, New York and Los Angeles have proven to be particularly popular throughout this year.

Heathrow’s overall passenger numbers have increased by as much as 32.4 per cent year-on-year, reaching a headline figure of 66.3 million passengers. This figure is actually just 2.4 percent less than in 2019.

Last year, meanwhile, Sebastian Ebel - Tui's chief financial officer - warned that the European airline sector "continues to face challenges".

The Tui boss admitted that that industry continued to face some major issues following the easing of COVID-19 restrictions.

Before he started his new role at Tui, Sebastian said: "We are consistently tackling the operational challenges of the restart (of travel following the easing of COVID-related restrictions).

"We want to offer our guests the usual high Tui standards of quality and service.

"The topics of quality and customer experience are therefore at the top of my agenda.

"To this end, I will engage in intensive dialogues with the destinations, retail, but also with system partners such as airports and airlines."