Passenger numbers soar at Birmingham Airport

New records reached during busy summer. 

Birmingham Airport is celebrating another major milestone, as passenger numbers reached new records. Over the past 12 months, nine million people chose to fly from Birmingham, taking advantage of the Airport’s world-class facilities and its growing network of flights.

The nine million milestone was achieved after the airport enjoyed the second busiest month in its history during August, handled over one million passengers, a 2% increase compared to the same period last year. The month also saw the airport record its busiest day of the year so far, as 36,781 people passed through the terminal on Friday 23rd.

The airport’s chief executive Paul Kehoesaid: “These passenger figures clearly demonstrate there is strong demand for flights from Birmingham. We’ve seen a period of sustained growth throughout the past 12 months, with a strong summer performance too as passengers enjoy the benefits of our state-of-the-art facilities and expanding network of flights. These growing passenger figures, coupled with the extension of our runway, due to be completed in spring 2014, provides encouraging signs for the future.”

Passenger numbers at the Airport have been given a significant boost thanks to the introduction of new airlines including Air India, who recently began operating flights four times weekly to Delhi and Amritsar, using the Boeing 787-8 ‘Dreamliner’ aircraft in August.

The continued expansion of other airlines including Monarch and Aer Lingus has also been a key factor in attracting new passengers to Birmingham. Turkish Airlines increased its daily flight programme from seven to ten flights a week to Istanbul back in April, providing onward connections to 221 destinations worldwide.

Between September 2012 and August 2013, popular destinations for passengers flying from Birmingham included Amsterdam, Paris and New York. However, Dublin proved to be most popular, for those visiting friends and relatives, closely followed by Dubai, for onward connections to the Far East and Australia.