THOUSANDS of fans following England's rugby World Cup campaign in Australia helped boost British Airways' passenger numbers last month.

BA carried 2.68 million passengers in November - a 1.8 per cent increase on November last year.

Asia Pacific traffic - which includes flights to Australia - was up nine per cent, while North and South American traffic rose 8.9 per cent.

The only sector to see a fall last month was UK and Europe, which was down 1.5 per cent.