Passenger numbers at Birmingham International Airport fell by more than four per cent last month, new figures revealed today.

Bosses blamed the fragile nature of the economy for the decline, which has not been helped by the collapse of a number of UK travel firms.

Birmingham-based Sun4U and Kiss Flights are among the travel firms to have collapsed in recent weeks.

The figures show that the airport handled a total of 928,283 travellers through its two terminals in July, 664,311 of them taking scheduled flights and the remaining 263,972 on charter services.

Paul Kehoe, airport chief executive, said: “Given the fragile nature of the current economic recovery it is perhaps unsurprising that passenger numbers during July were down 4.2 per cent year-on-year.

“However, Birmingham International Airport continues to fare better than a number of other UK airports and the momentum continues to build for Birmingham to be seen as a viable alternative for airports in the over-heated south east of England.”

More than 1,000 holidaymakers were stranded abroad when Sun4U, which employed 40 staff at its call centre in they city’s Navigation Street, failed earlier this month.

This was followed by the collapse of budget travel firm Kiss Flights, which also ceased trading — hitting the holiday plans of more than 60,000 holidaymakers.

The airport said last month that passenger figures in June had also fallen, down 3.1 per cent to 871,385. Last month passenger figures did increase compared to June, mainly due to the school holidays and families heading overseas in search of the sun.

Birmingham is hoping to cash in on the collapse of plans to build new runways around London.