Traffic from Africa saw the largest growth during 2019, up 5.3% to 3.37 million.

This was closely followed by Latin America (+4.4% to 1.35 million) and North America (+4.3% to 18.1 million).

EU passenger numbers grew 3.1% to 27.6 million, Asia-Pacific 2.4% to 11.53 million and Middle East just 0.5% to 7.66 million.

The only decline was in domestic arrivals, down 0.1% to 4.79 million.

Increases in raw air traffic movements were most pronounced from Latin America, up 6.5% to 5,994 last year, followed by Asia-Pacific up 4.9% to 47,018.

The number of flights from the Middle East though declined slightly, falling 2% to 30,663.

In total, just shy of 6.5 million passengers travelled through Heathrow in December, an increase of 2.5%.

Heathrow chief executive John Holland-Kaye said: “2018 has been an exceptional year for Heathrow, with record passenger numbers and service levels, and with MPs voting overwhelmingly in support of expansion.

“We are on track to deliver an expanded Heathrow in the early years of Brexit, which will keep Britain as one of the world’s great trading nations.”

The airport handled 1.6 million metric tonnes of cargo last year, some 600,000 of which came from North America, followed by Asia-Pacific with 510,000.