March delivers 18th consecutive record breaking month for Manchester Airport

2.2 million passengers flew through Manchester Airport in March 2025, the airport’s 18th consecutive record breaking month.

The busiest destinations in March were Amsterdam and Dublin – but this month holiday hotspots like Alicante, Mallorca and Tenerife are surging in popularity as the travel industry’s summer season kicks off in earnest. Easter getaways have already seen the airport experience its busiest days of the year as demand for travel form the UK’s global gateway in the North continues to grow.

Manchester Airport has extra staff in place help make sure that customer service levels remain high even with more passengers passing through. Last month 85% of passengers waited for less than five minutes to get to security and 99.8% waited less than 15 minutes.

Continued growth in passenger numbers comes as airport’s decade-long, £1.3 billion transformation programme completes later this year. That will see the full opening of its brand-new Terminal 2, which will become the centre of gravity for the whole airport, catering for around 70% of all its passengers.

It will also see a host of other improvements coming online – including things like a new digital gantry above World Way as drivers arrive at the airport and the barrierless system that has been installed at drop-off and pick-up zones at all three terminals and the train, tram and bus station.

The new digital gantry provides live information and directions to traffic arriving, while the barrierless system at pick-up and drop off zones means drivers will no longer have to queue to leave the areas removing the risk of that causing them to be charged for staying longer.

Manchester Airport Managing Director Chris Woodroofe said:

“Here at Manchester Airport we’re proud to connect the North to the World – and that means making sure people can get to the places they want to go.

“Our route network of more than 200 destinations via 50 airlines is clearly doing that and we’re seeing more and more passengers taking advantage of our status as the UK’s global gateway in the North every month.

“We have an exciting year ahead with the completion of our transformation programme not only bringing about the full opening of our world-class new Terminal 2, but also a whole range of other improvements like the digital gantry on World Way.

“Customer service is really important to us so it’s fantastic that 85% of passengers barely had to wait to get to security last month. We’re aiming to maintain fantastic levels of service over the summer months and things like the new gantry and our barrierless pick-up and drop-off zones are a part of that.

“I can’t wait to welcome all of our passengers this summer and help them start their holidays here at Manchester Airport.”