British airport operator BAA said on Wednesday that it handled 10.7 million passengers in December, an increase of 2 percent from the year before.

BAA also said in a statement that for the financial year to date, passenger traffic at its seven UK airports was running 2.4 percent higher than in the same period of the previous year.

BAA said it now expects the total rise for the full financial year to end-March to be around 2.5 percent, rather than the estimated figure of around 3 percent it predicted at the time of its interim results in November.