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Last month was the busiest April on record for Heathrow Airport, according to the British Airports Authority (BAA). The London hub saw passenger numbers soar by 31.5% over April 2010, after a succession of bank holidays and royal nuptials had people racing to their travel agent.

The development is the second in a series of record-breaking events at Heathrow Airport. The hub boosted the punctuality of departures and arrivals to 94% on March 22 2011, a huge improvement over the figures for 2008, when 35.5% of all Heathrow's European flights were delayed.

Colin Matthews, chief at the BAA, said that £1bn of investments were responsible for the hub’s bourgeoning popularity. The executive has also commended the efforts of the “77,000 staff from 320 companies” who work at the airport.

April’s clement weather, which now seems remarkable, given the chilly start to May, was a boon for several other airports in the UK, including Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Liverpool. Robin Tudor, boss at Liverpool John Lennon, said that the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull in April 2010 forced 100,000 people to abandon their holiday plans. However, more than double that figure turned up at the airport during the same month this year.

Iceland’s geological tantrums look set to become an annual feature, after the country’s Meteorological Office revealed that Grimsvotn, a volcano, had begun erupting. The event mirrors the eruption of Eyjafjallajokull for timing, but experts are not anticipating a second ‘volcanic ash crisis’ in the skies above Western Europe. “(The ash) is not spreading nearly as much”, explained Magnus Tumi Gudmundsson, of the University of Iceland. “The winds are not as strong as they were in Eyjafjallajokull". However, meteorologists have made no promises beyond the next 24 hours.

Heathrow Airport was visited by 5.8m people during April 2010. The figure represents more than half of the 9.1m handled by the six BAA airports combined. Passenger numbers at neighbouring hub, Stansted, were also up, by 26.2%.