MAG continues to grow in January as ski and city breaks take off

Passengers

Cargo

*excludes figures for Bournemouth Airport, which was sold to RCA in December 2017.

The start of 2018 saw MAG, the UK’s largest airport group, serve more passengers than in the same period last year, as passenger statistics for January showed 1.4% year on year growth.

At London Stansted, 1,801,994 passengers flew in January 2018, a 3.3% increase despite Ryanair cancelling some winter services this year. Destinations that proved popular in January included the Canary Islands for winter sun and ski destinations such as Chambéry and Milan.

Looking into the new year, the airport is expecting to gain further ground in Summer 2018 as Primera Air begin flights to New York, Toronto, Boston and Washington DC and Emirates begin daily 777 flights to Dubai, linking Stansted to an extensive network of global destinations.

Manchester Airport’s passenger numbers in January were flat year on year (-0.05%) despite the sudden loss of Monarch flights which were operating this time last year. The airport’s key airlines continued to grow year on year in January and new destinations for Winter 2018 such as Muscat, and routes with expanded capacity such as Hong Kong, Abu Dhabi and Frankfurt performed well.

Strong airline demand has enabled MAG to make good progress in re-allocating the slots previously used by Monarch for Summer 2018. Jet2.com, easyJet, Thomas Cook Airlines and Ryanair have all confirmed new based aircraft at Manchester, with Jet2.com planning to expand into Terminal 2 for this summer, meaning their flights will operate across two terminals for the first time. These additional planes, together with high load factors, mean that MAG expects Manchester to see further growth through Summer 2018.

The Group’s biggest cargo airport, East Midlands, saw a 12.6% growth in cargo tonnage in January despite a small drop in passenger numbers (-2.7%). MAG’s other two airports also saw growth in cargo, with London Stansted growing 4.5% to 20,855 tonnes and Manchester growing 1.6% to 8,277 tonnes.

MAG’s three airports have now served 58.6 million passengers in the last 12 months on a like-for-like basis*, an increase of 6.7% on last year. Manchester has been the fastest growing airport in the past 12 months, growing 7.4% to serve 27.8m passengers, more than ever before.

Andrew Cowan, CEO of Manchester Airport, said:

“One of Manchester Airport’s strengths is its mix of airlines and destinations, which provide passengers with an unrivalled choice of places to travel to for business or leisure.

“This has contributed to annual passenger numbers growing 7.4% year-on-year, which is positive news for the region.

“As we enter the Spring months, we continue to have strong dialogue with a range of airlines about launching services to destinations across the globe, at the same time as progressing the £1bn transformation of the airport.”

This week ACI Europe confirmed that Manchester was one of Europe’s fastest growing major airports in 2017. For airports handling more than 25 million passengers a year, Manchester was the second fastest growing airport in Europe in 2017, only beaten by Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport.