December was Sydney Airport's busiest ever month with more people visiting its arrival and departure lounges than at any period in its history.

A total of 2.734 million passengers travelled through Sydney Airport, a 7.2 per cent increase on December of 2005.

The airport also had its busiest day for international travellers since the 2000 Olympics, when 37,181 people filed through on December 22.

Sydney Airport said the Ashes series prompted a 9.9 per cent increase in passengers from the United Kingdom.

Travellers from China increased 19.6 per cent, Korea 13.7 per cent, India 7.8 per cent and France 7.3 per cent.

The number of Australian travellers grew by 5.8 per cent.

Sydney Airport chief Russell Balding said the growth was welcome news to the tourism industry.

"A really pleasing part of these results is how well the airport performed in handling these record numbers with no significant disruptions to the services we provide," Mr Balding said.

"Handling these record numbers was a good challenge, and the overall performance is a credit to all the staff, organisations, and companies involved," he said.

2006 was the busiest year yet for Sydney Airport, as the number of domestic and regional passengers passing through the airport reached 20 million for the first time.

That represented an annual increase of 4.3 per cent on 2005.