People jetting off for romantic weekend breaks to locations such as Dublin, Paris & Amsterdam helped Manchester Airport increase passenger numbers by 10.2% compared with the same month last year.
Valentine’s Day also played a part in a further monthly boost to the region’s economy. The amount of air freight handled through Manchester was up 22.1%, partly due to an influx in flowers and other commodities being shipped to the UK for Valentine’s Day, plus capacity increases across a range of carriers.
A total of 1.35m people travelled through the North’s major airport in February 2015, up from 1.23m in the same period last year.
It takes the rolling annual total to 22.19m passengers – placing the UK’s third busiest airport on track to smash its all-time record of 22.42m well before the start of the busy summer season.
Domestic traffic was up 19.6%, most notably due to the on-going success of the ‘regional hub’ operated by Flybe, which offers regional point to point connections to long-haul services operated from Manchester, including the extensive global networks of Cathay Pacific, Etihad and Finnair.
Ken O’Toole, Chief Commercial Officer for MAG, owner of Manchester Airport, said:
“Manchester Airport’s continued significant growth is testament to the critical role it plays in UK aviation, providing the North of England and our extended catchment area with global connectivity through an unrivalled network of short and long haul destinations. As well as the increased passenger numbers, February also saw announcements for new airlines and destinations including Vueling Airlines to Barcelona pus Iraqi Airways to Erbil and Sulaymaniyah.
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