Record numbers for Manchester Airport

Manchester Airport is celebrating its best summer to date after seeing passenger figures rise to nearly 3 million during August.

2,934,393 passengers used Manchester Airport, a year-on-year increase of 9% that also brought the facility’s 12-month rolling total to 24,605,575.

Spain and The Balearics were some of the most popular destinations, with Palma, Alicante and Tenerife among the top ten during the main period of the summer holidays.

Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Orlando were the most popular long-haul destinations.

Around 104,000 passengers came through Manchester Airport’s terminals every day in August.

CEO Ken O’Toole said: “August is always the busiest month of the year for the airport, as families get away during the school holidays and it was no different this year.

“Spain has certainly proved popular for families, which reflected the increase in capacity we saw from airlines to the likes of the Balearics and the Costas.”

He continued: “We’ve also seen growth that has been driven by new long haul services that launched this summer to the likes of Boston, Los Angeles and Beijing.

“This has all contributed to a record summer for Manchester Airport.”

Aircraft movements rose by 11% last month to 19,700 planes, while freight increased by 12% to 9,837 tonnes handled.

The wider portfolio of the site’s owner, Manchester Airports Group, reported passenger figures above the 6m mark, with London Stansted achieving 2,494,732, East Midlands 596,155 and Bournemouth 83,598.