MORE than 65,000 Herefordshire residents helped Birmingham International Airport (BIA) achieve record passenger numbers in 2003.

Statistics released yesterday (Wednesday) by the Airport Company show a new annual passenger record for the twelfth successive year, breaking through the nine million passenger mark for the first time.

During the year, 9,083,101 travellers used the UK's fifth largest airport - an overall increase of 13.1% on the previous year.

Record passenger numbers were achieved in all 12 months, with the busiest month ever experienced in August when more than one million travellers used the Airport.

The busiest day on record was also achieved on Friday, October 24, when 37,220 people travelled through BIA's two terminals. This record was as a result of increased activity due to the ITMA 2003 Exhibition, which was held at the neighbouring NEC.

The year ended with the highest ever December passenger total, with 544,758 travellers using BIA - up 9.5% on December 2002.

Reflecting on the past 12 months, the Airport's Managing Director, Richard Heard, said: ''It's been an unforgettable year, with many significant developments.

In March, we opened SkyRail and Birmingham International Interchange, making rail access from Herefordshire more convenient and comfortable, and adding immense benefits to the whole region.

''Meanwhile, airlines and tour operators have increased capacity during the year, launched new routes and are now operating more frequencies than ever as a result of the increased demand from both business and leisure communities.

In 2004, we can look forward to a double daily service to Dubai with Emirates and our strongest route network ever for the summer season, with more choice and easier worldwide connections.

''The year ended with the welcome news that the Government had identified Birmingham as the site for a new runway in its White Paper, vindicating our belief that Birmingham is best placed to provide a sustainable solution to the Midlands' growing air travel needs. We will now start work on preparing a draft Master Plan and investigate how to best develop in a sustainable, incremental and environmentally concious way.''

In the year as a whole, the scheduled sector rose by 18.2% overall and served 61 direct destinations. Asian scheduled routes increased by 23.5% and on international services, an increase of 19.5% was achieved. Scheduled services to EU destinations grew by 21.4%, and on non-EU flights an increase of 11.2% was achieved.

Growth was also seen on domestic routes, with a 14.3% rise.

The most popular scheduled destinations in 2003 were Dublin, Paris and Amsterdam.

The increased demand for holidays from Birmingham prompted tour operators to provide greater seat capacity, resulting in charter passenger numbers growing by 4.3% last year.

The top three charter destinations of the year were Palma, Tenerife and Malaga.