As airports in London continue to struggle with an ever-increasing influx of flights and passengers, the UK is beginning to rely more heavily on regional airports to boost the country’s capacity. This has seen Birmingham Airport see record numbers of passengers passing through its terminal building for two months in a row, indicating that this summer may yield the strongest performance in its history.
In May, 893,229 passengers passed through Birmingham Airport, marking a 5.3 per cent increase when compared to the same period last year and beating the previous record, set in May 2008, by 1.8 per cent. This builds upon last month’s total of 750,000 passengers, which was again the busiest April the airport has ever seen.
CEO of Birmingham Airport, Paul Kehoe, is optimistic that the airport’s busy streak will continue as school holidays begin and families fly out to exotic destinations.
He says; “To achieve two record breaking months back to back is no mean feat.
“Beating our previous record for April was fantastic, but to follow it up with a record breaking May is a magnificent achievement.
“The performance over the past few months is particularly encouraging as we enter the busiest period of the year – last week we saw Agean Airlines launch a twice weekly service to Athens and we hope the expanding network of routes available from Birmingham will see this upward trend continue into the summer months.”
Short scheduled routes saw the greatest increases during the month, with Toulouse boasting a huge 187.6 per cent rise in passenger numbers. In fact, France dominated the top four percentage increases in passenger numbers, with Bergerac, Bordeaux and La Rochelle rising by 176 per cent, 144.7 per cent and 122.6 per cent respectively.
Thanks to the airport’s numerous investments into increasing the number of available destinations and carriers offered to consumers, long haul and chartered flights also enjoyed an impressive month. Long haul services saw a growth of 14.5 per cent when compared to May of last year, indicating that Birmingham could be a viable option for solving the UK’s airport capacity issue in the short term.
Chartered flights to Austria, Mexico, Portugal and Jamaica proved most popular with Brits seeking some spring sunshine, racking up increases of 39.7 per cent, 33.3 per cent, 18.2 per cent and 12.5 per cent respectively. And although scheduled flights accounted for 80.4 per cent of all airport traffic, there are signs that the gap between scheduled and chartered flights may be closing.
Although there is no question that London, as the UK’s business capital and tourism hotspot, is the logical location for an expanded hub airport, these figures demonstrate that regional airports have a vital role to play in providing commercial flights for UK residents, overseas visitors and business travellers.
