Strong start to 2015 continues for Birmingham Airport
BIRMINGHAM Airport has continued its strong start to 2015 with another month of growth during February.
Almost 650,000 passengers passed through the terminal last month, an 8.4% increase on the same month last year.
February saw the airport handle 630,231 passengers in total, which follows on from a record-breaking start to the year in January, beating its previous record for the month set in 2008.
Scheduled traffic in February accounted for 89% of the total figure, with charter passengers making up the remaining 11%.
Paul Kehoe, the airport’s chief executive, said: “The great start we made in 2015 has been followed up with another strong performance in February, which is a positive sign for the rest of the year.
“February was boosted thanks to families choosing to fly from Birmingham during a busy half-term week, as well as the introduction of flights to Reykjavik with Icelandair at the start of the month.”
He said there were many new routes, many served by new carriers, set to launch in the next few months.
These include Madrid, Barcelona and Malaga with Norwegian, Barcelona with Vueling and New York JFK with American Airlines.
“These, coupled with the recent announcement that Birmingham will host a programme of non-stop charter flights to Beijing in the summer with Hainan Airlines, means passengers flying from Birmingham have more choice than ever before in 2015,” added Mr Kehoe.
Growth of 100% was seen on scheduled routes to Hamburg, Oporto, Gdansk, Reykjavik and Toulouse, as well as increases to Las Palmas (+90.7%), Milan (+81.1%) and Amritsar (+69.3%).
Charter services to Montego Bay (+100.0%), Hannover (+100.0%) and Izmir (+100.0%) also experienced significant growth.
