Manchester Airport set to top 20 million again

MANCHESTER Airport expects 17 new summer services to push 2013 passenger numbers back over 20 million.

Manchester, which with 4.5% growth in passenger numbers 2012 was the best performing airport in the UK, says August will be its busiest month with more than two million passengers jetting away on holiday. In total 14 million passengers will fly out of the airport in the summer season.

So far in 2013  the airport has seen a 4.5% increase in traffic, with 11 months of consecutive growth.

Ken O’Toole, chief commercial officer for MAG, owners of Manchester Airport, said: “This summer season will add to a strong performance over the last 12 months for us.

“Not only are we delivering growth, we are offering our customers more choice than ever before and we are proud to be ever strengthening ourselves as the airport for the North. Our ‘Fly Manchester’ campaign is targeting passengers and encouraging them to use Manchester over others and we want to continue the upward momentum.”

New for the summer will be Athens with new airline, Aegean Airlines, as well as Cairo with another new airline, EgyptAir. New offerings from easyJet will include Keflavik in Iceland, Prague and Venice in Italy.

Ryanair is also increasing its network and introducing new services to Corfu, Krakow, Lanzarote, Paphos in Cyprus and Trapani in Sicily. In addition, Jet2.com will begin new services to Corfu, Menorca and Zakinthos.

At its pre-recession peak in 2007, passenger numbers hit 22 million.