New Orleans Louis Armstrong Airport is anticipating a record year for passenger numbers in 2004, according to a leading airport official.

Aviation Director Roy Williams made his upbeat forecast after passenger numbers in the first half of the year passed the 5 million mark - an 8 per cent increase on 2003.

"I'm not saying this is going to be the year that we break 10 million passengers, but I would bet you a doughnut that this will be a record year for us," Williams said.

The airport's previous record for a calendar year was 9.87 million passengers in 2000, the year before the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

New Orleans' air traffic volume is rising faster than that of the airline industry as a whole, which saw a 6.2 per cent increase for the first half of the year. June traffic was particularly good, totaling 851,234 passengers - a 9.2 percent increase over June 2003 traffic.

Traffic dropped to 9.5 million passengers in 2002, before rebounding slightly to 9.75 million last year.

(Reuters)