Manchester Airport’s busiest ever December puts it on a path to break passenger records as 1.44 million passengers travelled through in December, a 6.15% increase in full year growth compared to 2013.
Enjoying the busiest December in its 76 year history, passenger numbers travelling through the North’s global gateway increased 7.45% on last year.
With many people seeking winter sunshine or returning home to the UK for the festive period, a total of 1,435,470 people used the airport in December 2014 – beating the previous highest December of 1,386,259 passengers in December 2007.
Marking the ninth consecutive month of growth, the moving annual total reached 21.97m, which is 6.15% higher than 2013.
Manchester Airport’s highest ever rolling 12 month passenger number was 22,262,900, which was reached in July 2006.
Ken O’Toole, Chief Commercial Officer for MAG, (left) said:
“Looking back, 2014 has been an outstanding year for Manchester in terms of growth and gives us the momentum to attract even more new services and increased capacity on existing routes in 2015.
“The on-going success is testament to our Fly Manchester campaign, targeting people in our catchment who use airports other than ours. The large increase in passengers, with a mix of new long haul and short haul services, demonstrates the power of Manchester Airport and the critical role it plays in UK aviation.
“We now fly to over 200 destinations around the globe and continue to attract new airlines and routes.”
December also saw the start of the new Cathay Pacific service, flying direct to-and-from Hong Kong four times a week, making Manchester the only UK airport outside of London with a direct service to China.
2015 will see the launch of a host of new services, announced during the course of 2014, including:
· easyJet flights to Funchal (Madeira), Pisa, Porto and Marseille, Split and Kefalonia
· Ryanair flights to Bologna, Lisbon, Eindhoven, Zadar and Stuttgart
· Thomas Cook to commence flights to Miami flying twice-weekly from 3rd May 2015
· Jet2.com’s new routes for Summer 2015 to Antalya (Turkey), the Greek Island of Kefalonia, Malta and Tunisia
· Turkish Airlines increasing capacity to Istanbul with three daily flights from June
· Plus, announced last week, Emirates to add further capacity to the Dubai services with the introduction of an additional A380 service
December also saw £3.5m of investment in security at Terminal One, where four new security lanes were added, to enhance the passenger journey.
Overall 2014 was a strong year for Manchester Airport as it continues to add approximately one million passengers per year. As well as the wealth of new destinations highlighted above, the airport was also voted Airport of the Year by the AOA in 2014.
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