The airport passed the 45 million passenger mark for the year last week while its annual results show a 7.7% in passenger number growth to 44.1 million passengers for the year ending March 31, 2017.

The growth was largely driven by a strong long-haul performance as the number of routes to far flung destinations grew by 13.6% with one in five of the airport’s passengers now on the routes.

North Atlantic routes also performed well, having grown by 38.7%, while average load factors increased to 85.2%.

Revenues also grew by 7.7% to £725 million, allowing Gatwick to post a profit before tax of £131.8 million.

Gatwick CEO Stewart Wingate said: “It has been another record-breaking year and another chapter in the transformation of Gatwick.

“We have, this week, broken through the 45 million annual passengers mark which is 13 million passengers a year more than we served in 2009 when Gatwick came into independent ownership.

“It is a simple fact that, of the top 20 airports in the world by passenger growth, Gatwick is the only one with a single runway.

“We continue to offer the UK a financeable and deliverable second runway scheme which we stand ready to deliver should the Government give us the go-ahead.

“Gatwick has a bright future – we will invest £240 million this year as we continue our £2.5 billion programme to improve our facilities, improve our service and passenger experience, and improve our performance so we can realise our ambitious plans to grow even further.

“This will lay some of the physical groundwork for our continued growth. Improvements planned include an extension to Pier 6 and changes to the taxiway configuration to improve efficiency on the airfield even further.”