MAG airports add over half a million passengers in April

Passengers

Cargo

MAG’s airports delivered a strong performance in April, growing by over 13% and seeing over 500,000 more passengers using their four airports during the month than in April last year.

Manchester Airport’s strong growth in passenger numbers continued, up 17% for the month, as families from across the North took advantage of the later Easter and flew off to sunnier climes.

More than 84,000 passengers passed through the three terminals on Friday 7 April as the airport saw its busiest day of the year so far. The most popular destinations for passengers over the Easter break were Amsterdam, Dubai and Dublin as well as the Spanish holiday favourites of Tenerife, Alicante and Malaga. Flyers also took advantage of new capacity added to San Francisco and Boston as well as additional capacity added to routes across the USA, including to Las Vegas, Philadelphia and New York.

London Stansted welcomed over 2.1 million passengers to the airport during its busiest ever April, an increase of 11% over the same month in 2016, and passing the previous high for the month set in 2006.

Stansted's record monthly total was boosted by the first full month of airlines’ summer schedules and a number of new route launches, an average load factor of 89.7% on each aircraft – another record for the month of April - and the later Easter holidays. International markets seeing strong passenger growth compared to April last year included the Canary Islands, Cyprus and France plus destinations in Turkey and Denmark.

MAG’s other two UK airports at East Midlands and Bournemouth airports also registered strong growth in passenger numbers during the month. East Midlands grew 6.8%, as more passengers flew to Brussels, Cyprus and Budapest. Other growth routes at East Midlands included Geneva, Jersey and Malta. Bournemouth’s growth was driven by the popularity of Geneva and Lanzarote.

In April, the Group saw 55,000 tonnes of cargo shipped through its airports. Growth rates were adversely affected due to the effect that the timing of Easter had on postal days during the month.

Andrew Cowan, London Stansted CEO, said:

"The start of the summer flying schedule is always a busy time at the airport and this year we have exceeded all previous records as we experienced our busiest ever April, with over 2.1 million passengers passing through the terminal.

“The growth was driven by strong demand for flights to many holiday hotspots across the Easter holidays, the launch of a host of new routes by our airline partners, particularly Ryanair and the newly arrived Jet2.com who kicked-off their first ever flight and holiday offer from any airport in the South-East. We also saw a record number of seats occupied on each flight for any April in the airport’s history.

“The summer season promises to be another very busy and exciting time for Stansted as airlines add even more routes and increase capacity to key destinations. This is great news for passengers who want to fly from their local airport.

“To keep pace with increased demand and improve the passenger experience, we are bringing forward investment to provide additional check-in capacity, add more seating in the departure lounge and significantly increase car parking capacity. These new facilities will help improve customer service and add vital capacity before we open the new arrivals building and transform the existing terminal.”