GLASGOW Airport has reported its busiest October in six years, as the autumn school holiday and the launch of a new Ryanair base contributed to 734,000 passengers passing through its doors.

The airport, sold to a Spanish and Australian consortium comprising Ferrovial and Macquarie by Heathrow Airport Holdings last month, said passenger numbers were up 2.7 per cent on October 2013.

The October getaway was also a key factor for Aberdeen International Airport, which recorded its busiest day ever on the 10th of the month. Some 15,068 passengers passed through Aberdeen on that day, beating the previous record set on July 21 this year.

Total passenger numbers at the Dyce airport increased by eight per cent on the previous year to 356,687, with growth seen in both fixed wing flights and the helicopter operation.

But passenger numbers dropped modestly at Edinburgh Airport, falling 0.2 per cent compared with October last year to 915,985 passengers.

Edinburgh, Scotland's biggest airport, said it has seen strong growth in the six months between May and October, when more than six million travellers passed through.

Glasgow Airport reported a 21st consecutive month of growth as it benefited from the October break, one of its busiest periods of the year.

International and domestic traffic grew by 2.8 per cent and 2.7 per cent respectively as people headed for hot spots such as the Canary Islands, Portugal, Dubai and Florida. Glasgow also saw an immediate impact from the opening of Ryanair's base on October 26. The Irish airline is currently operating seven routes from Glasgow - Stansted, Dublin, Derry and Bydgoszcz, Warsaw Modlin and Wroclaw in Poland - and will expand that to nine in the summer when flights to Carcassonne, France, and Chania, Greece, begin next summer.

With the MTV Europe Awards having taken place in Glasgow, and the city set to host major football fixtures against Ireland on Friday and England next week, November is also shaping up well.

Amanda McMillan, managing director of Glasgow Airport, said: "Large scale events such as these not only ensure the spotlight remains firmly on Glasgow, they undoubtedly help drive growth at the airport."

Glasgow was also boosted last month with news that Canadian airline WestJet will launch daily direct flights to Nova Scotia in May.

Glasgow has secured 20 new routes and services this year.

A spokesman said 2014 is on course to be the airport's busiest since 2008, and hopes it will return to its pre-recession level of eight million passengers in 2015. Ryanair aims to carry 850,000 passengers each year.

Meanwhile Roger Hunt, operations director at Aberdeen Airport, said it had reaped the benefits of planning "meticulously for the October getaway this year." And he noted changes were being made to accommodate the growth at the airport.

Mr Hunt said: "With growth comes capacity and constraints and we are working hard to address these in the short and medium term."

Elsewhere, having welcomed more than 140,000 more passengers between May and September compared with the same period last year, Edinburgh Airport chief executive Gordon Dewar said it is "still on a high from a fantastic summer and we are pleased with our performance in October."

Edinburgh reported that international passenger numbers dropped by 2.5 per cent in October, which it linked to there being fewer routes to European destinations in operation.

However it said long-haul routes performed well, noting that services to Philadelphia, Chicago and Toronto had been in operation in the first half. Domestic passenger numbers fell by 2.4 per cent on last October to 438,709.

Separately, a government commissioned report has claimed the cost of expanding Britain's airport capacity has been underestimated.

The Airport Commission said the plan to expand Heathrow could cost between £3 billion and £4bn more than expected, and that a second runway at Gatwick would cost £2bn more than forecast. Gatwick chief Stewart Wingate has warned Scotland will face higher charges if the Heathrow plans gets the go ahead.