THE passenger numbers at Ronaldsway for August are up slightly on last year.
It will be welcome news for the airport following months of reporting decreases.
A total of 65,597 passengers passed through the airport, 45 more than in August 2009.
Airport director Ann Reynolds said: "Achieving last year's traffic level is a reassuring milestone for us.
"August is a particularly important month as it is traditionally the second busiest month after the TT month of June and a shortfall can deeply affect the year's performance.
"We still have a long way to go and we are expecting traffic will still fall short of 2009 levels for a number of the remaining months of the year, but August has given us a reason to be cautiously optimistic."
Passengers flying between the Isle of Man and the key north west region of the UK showed an increase of nearly 1,100 passengers with Liverpool, flown by Flybe and easyJet, generating almost 3,000 more passengers than in August 2009, an increase of 27.5 per cent.
However, there have been resultant reductions in traffic in both the Manchester and Blackpool routes, reducing figures by 13 per cent to 14 per cent.
London traffic has also increased by 1.5 per cent, with Flybe's routes to Gatwick and Luton selling two-thirds of seats over the month and both showing improvements of about 7 per cent.
Scottish routes also showed a small increase, with Edinburgh continuing to strengthen, while the boost to services to South and South West England provided by the Bristol route was more than balanced by reductions to the Southampton and Gloucester services and the withdrawal of Newquay.
In the Northeast, Manx2.com increased Newcastle traffic by over 50 per cent while their Leeds route saw a 19 per cent decrease.
Charter traffic also grew massively during August, with the popular Freedom Holidays weekly summer flights to Majorca direct from the Isle of Man helping to increase charter numbers fivefold.
Ann also said that while international air transport has bounced back after the recession and the ash crisis, UK domestic air traffic has been very slow to recover.
She added: "Confidence has rapidly returned to the global air transport scene and, whilst the domestic markets have not yet responded in the same way, it is expected that this will follow slowly over time.
"The Isle of Man is essentially part of the UK domestic air travel scene and continues to follow slow domestic recovery trends.
"However, I believe that we can use this opportunity to stimulate interest and awareness in the Island for both the business and leisure markets to help to lead the way to faster recovery."
Infrastructure Minister Phil Gawne MHK said: "The Island has a huge amount to offer, both in terms of the leisure market and business development.
"‘I am acutely aware that the ability to capitalise upon these opportunities depends very much upon the range and quality of air services we offer and, in turn, the future of our air services depends upon the buoyancy and growth of the Isle of Man’s leisure and business economy.
"We must therefore work together to support the future of the Isle of Man's air communications."
