Birmingham Airport celebrates two years of non-stop growth
Birmingham Airport has seen two years of continuous record monthly passenger growth after February became its busiest ever.
The Midlands’ biggest airport handled 807,733 passengers – 83,000 more than the same month in 2016 and an 11.5 per cent increase.
Demand increased on both long and short haul services with very significant growth again recorded on long-haul flights - up by 21 per cent compared to the same month last year.
The number of passengers taking short haul flights grew by more than nine per cent year-on-year.
Announcing the news at MIPIM 2017 in Cannes, France, chief executive Paul Kehoe said: "To record a whole two years of monthly back-to-back record breaking figures is an excellent achievement and makes Birmingham one of the UK’s fastest growing airports.
"This unprecedented demand, particularly to long haul destinations, goes hand-in-hand with the booming regional economy and means this airport is becoming increasingly attractive for airlines to serve the Midlands market.
"Only last month we broke the news that one of the world’s most recognisable brands, British Airways, will be returning to Birmingham Airport from this summer, becoming the tenth new airline in the last year to launch.
"Our focus now is on completing the £100m package of development works for the summer season to prepare the operation for our busiest period ever, and later this year we will consult on our Master Plan to scope out how the current site can be maximised and the benefits of HS2 realised."
Scheduled traffic in February accounted for 91 per cent of the total, with charter passengers making up the remaining nine per cent.
Scheduled traffic overall grew by 11.7 per cent, with significant year-on-year growth to Madrid ( up 292.5 per cent), Cape Verde (103.2 per cent), Berlin (39.1 per cent), Salzburg (34.8 per cent) and Budapest (30.4 per cent).
Charter traffic experienced 7.5 per cent growth with significant expansion on services to Hurghada (up 169.4 per cent), Malaga (31.7 per cent), Verona (21.9 per cent) and Alicante (14.7 per cent).
Birmingham Airport is the UK’s third largest airport outside London, and the UK’s seventh largest overall, handling 12m passengers a year. It serves more than 140 direct scheduled and charter routes and offers an additional 300 possible connections worldwide.
By the end of 2017, the airport will have invested £450m on developing its infrastructure. This includes an extension to its runway, new air traffic control tower, terminal reconfiguration, additional parking and new retail and catering facilities.
