19 of the top 20 busiest international air routes from the UK originate from London Heathrow, according to the latest figures from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).

The CAA has just released statistics for the year 2006 which show that Heathrow-New York JFK is the busiest international route from the UK. Nearly three million passengers flew between the two airports in 2006.

Only the 15th busiest international route in the top 20 – between Stansted and Dublin - is not from Heathrow.

However, London to Dublin remains the biggest air route when all airports are taken into consideration. Some 4.5 million people flew between the two cities last year. The second busiest city to city route was London to New York, on which 3.8 million passengers flew.

Six of the top ten busiest domestic routes also have Heathrow at one end of the route. The busiest domestic route is Edinburgh-Heathrow, with 1.5 million passengers travelling between them, followed by Glasgow-Heathrow (1.3 million) and Manchester-Heathrow (1.1 million).

The CAA numbers also show that Stansted had the highest number of diverting planes according the figures, with 166 flights never reaching the Essex airport. Most were diverted to Luton but one flight was diverted to Exeter and four ended up in Manchester.

Luton and Bristol airports also suffered from high numbers of diverted flights (100 and 83 respectively).

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