More than 700 million passengers were transported by air in the European Union (EU) in 2005, an increase of 8.5 percent compared to 2004, said Eurostat, the statistical service of the EU, on Friday.

Air freight transport was up 3.5 percent in 2005.

Of the passengers, 23 percent were carried on national flights, 42 percent on intra-EU flights and 35 percent on extra-EU flights.

London/Heathrow remained the EU's busiest airport in terms of passengers, handling 68 million in 2005 -- nearly 10 percent of all air passengers in the EU. London/Heathrow handled 1 percent more passengers in 2005 compared to 2004.

Paris/Charles de Gaulle (53 million passengers) and Frankfurt ( 52 million) were the second and third busiest airports, followed by Amsterdam/Schipol (44 million) and Madrid/Barajas (42 million).

Passenger numbers rose in almost all EU member states in 2005 compared to 2004. Five of them recorded growth of 25 percent or more, the highest being Latvia (77 percent), followed by Slovakia (46 percent), Lithuania (44 percent), Estonia (41 percent) and Hungary (25 percent).

The highest numbers of passengers were registered in Britain ( 204 million), Germany (146 million), Spain (144 million), France ( 108 million) and Italy (88 million).

Passenger numbers rose by 8.8 percent in 2004 and by 4.9 percent in 2003.

In 2005, air freight in the EU rose by 3.5 percent compared to 2004, to almost 11 million tons, 80 percent of which was with non- EU countries.

German and British airports handled around half of all EU air freight. Frankfurt (2.0 million tons) was in 2005 the EU's leading airport for air freight, followed by Amsterdam/Schipol (1.5 million), London/Heathrow (1.4 million) and Paris/Charles de Gaulle (1.2 million).

Together, they handled 55 percent of all EU air freight. A second group, Brussels/National, Cologne/Bonn, and Luxembourg, each handling between 0.6 and 0.7 million tons, accounted for another 18 percent.