Passenger numbers continue to grow at Birmingham Airport.

Birmingham Airport handled 830,370 passengers in October, a 4.3% increase over the same month last year. The biggest growth sector was Asia, which saw a 25.5% increase, fuelled mainly by new direct flights to India and Pakistan.

Growth was also seen on scheduled non-EU services (+13.8%), Domestic routes (+5.3%) and EU flights (+3.6%) as more people realise the advantages of flying from Birmingham Airport.

Paul Kehoe, the Airport’s CEO, said, “We have a strong hour’s catchment of ten  million people and the UK’s largest share of the manufacturing activity so it’s no surprise that more people are choosing to travel from Birmingham rather than alternative congested airports.

“Birmingham is Britain’s most accessible airport, has world class facilities and a growing route network; particularly to long haul destinations, and we are focusing hard on expanding this even further with the imminent opening of our longer runway.”

Scheduled routes that experienced particular growth in October included, Barcelona (+197.8%), Islamabad (+40.6%), Waterford (+31.1%), Stuttgart (+21.1%), Istanbul (+19.2%) and Cologne (+18.3%). Charter services seeing an increase in passengers included Morocco (+611.2%), Malta (+104.1%), Tunisia (+52.7%), Turkey (+18.7%) and Portugal (+8.8%).

Scheduled services accounted for 83.3% of all traffic, whilst charter made up the remaining 16.7% of passengers flying from Birmingham Airport during the month of October.