Passenger volumes continue to rise at Birmingham Airport

PASSENGER volumes continue to grow at Birmingham Airport, with the facility handling more than one million people in October – its twentieth consecutive month of growth.

In total 1,074,242 passengers were recorded as travelling through the airport, up by 16.7% compared to the same month last year – equivalent to an additional 154,000 passengers.

Short haul flights saw the most significant passenger growth rates, up by 16.8% year-on-year compared to long haul, which increased by 14.4%. The large increases have been attributed to many families taking a break during the half-term school holidays.

Paul Kehoe, CEO, Birmingham Airport, said: “It’s great to see that we have gone through the autumn season and are entering the busy winter season still delivering month-on-month passenger records.

“October was our sixth consecutive month in which we have served over a million passengers in a single month. We expect this positive trend to continue as we enter the Christmas holiday period.”  

Scheduled traffic accounted for over 91% of the total passenger volume for October and saw a 22.3% growth rate compared to the same month last year. Charter traffic accounted for 9% of the total.

Caribbean, European and Middle Eastern destinations saw the largest increase in passengers compared to the same month last year.   

Scheduled destinations with significant year-on-year passenger growth were Madrid (+323.5%), Heraklion (+135.5%), Gran Canaria (+86.3%) and Palma de Mallorca (+80.9%).

Charter destinations with significant growth were Kos (+149.4%), Fuerteventura (+119.1%) and Hurghada (+66.8%).

Elsewhere, airline Flybe has started the first of the 68 additional flights it is operating from Birmingham to Glasgow, Edinburgh and Belfast City airports during the temporary closure of East Midlands Airport (EMA).

EMA is currently closed for three days each week up until December 19 to allow runway resurfacing work to be completed.

There are an additional two flights a week on a Sunday and Monday on both Birmingham to Glasgow and Edinburgh services, as well as an additional flight to and from Belfast City on a Monday.  
 
EMA closures apply from 20:00 Saturdays to 20:00 Mondays through to December 17, 2016; and 20:00 Saturday December 17 until 13:00 on Monday December 19.