- Record-breaking 81.5m passengers in 12 months to May, up 13.9% year-on-year
Heathrow is gearing up for a record summer, during which it anticipates around 30 million passengers travelling through the airport.
Britain’s busiest airport reported a record-breaking 81.5 million passengers travelled in the 12 months to May, up 13.9 per cent year-on-year.
It is also already preparing for the winter trading season with the launch of a new route to Tromsø in Norway ‘for Aurora-seekers and Arctic adventurers’.
Passengers exceeded the 7 million mark for the first time in May, with 7.2 million flying through its terminals.
Customers travelling to the Asia-Pacific region saw an increase of a whopping 36.6 per cent year-on-year to 10,448 passengers in the 12 months to May.
The UK, EU and Latin America markets also saw customer traffic increase by double-digit percentage levels.
And Heathrow said it expects to see ‘more records broken’ this summer with an estimated 30 million passengers travelling.
Thomas Woldbye, Heathrow CEO, said: ‘We have a winning team at Heathrow which has proven that we have put Covid firmly behind us.
‘Thanks to their extraordinary efforts we are now giving record numbers of people the chance to connect smoothly with the world.
‘Supporting 81m journeys doesn’t just help families to make wonderful holiday memories, importantly it is about the vital trade and business links a hub like Heathrow creates for the UK’s economy.’
In April, the British Airways hub posted a £189million pre-tax profit for the opening three months of 2024, compared to a £60million loss during the same period last year.
Victoria Scholar, head of investment at Interactive Investor said: ‘After the pain of the pandemic that wreaked havoc across the travel industry, Heathrow has enjoyed an impressive bounce back while simultaneously successfully navigating headwinds from the cost-of-living crisis.
‘International travel continues to gather strength with the popular London airport benefitting from continued demand for family holidays, and weekend mini-breaks as well as an improvement in appetite for business travel post covid.
‘It looks like this summer will be another strong period for Heathrow as individuals and families continue to prioritise their summer holidays over other types of discretionary spending.’
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