Passenger Numbers At Birmingham Airport On The Rise In October

Birmingham Airport has ended the summer flying season on a high, as almost 900,000 people chose the Midlands airport in October.

Latest figures reveal the Airport handled 878,689 passengers last month, which represents an increase of 5.8% compared to October 2013.

October’s passenger figures follow an historic summer for Birmingham Airport. August saw the Airport record the busiest month in its 75 year history, while this month’s total means the Airport has welcomed over 6.6 million passengers between April and October.

Paul Kehoe, Birmingham Airport CEO believes more good times are ahead following recent new route announcements with American Airlines and Vueling.

Paul said: “We’ve seen more and more passengers choose Birmingham Airport this summer, breaking records along the way, so it’s only fitting we end the season with another really strong performance.

“This summer has raised the bar for next year and we’re confident we can rise to that challenge. Not only are we seeing many airlines increasing frequencies and operating bigger aircraft that have more seats for next summer, but recently we announced two key new routes to New York JFK with American Airlines and Barcelona with Vueling, both starting in summer 15.

“The introduction of these new routes, which carry a BA codeshare, will give passengers more choice and only strengthen the demand that already exists to fly from Birmingham, as we have seen this summer.”

Paul added: “We’ll look to build on what has been a fantastic summer, as we enter an equally challenging winter period, supported with new routes to Berlin, Oslo and Hamburg with Flybe, as well as extended services to Cologne, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Florence, Oporto and Reykjavik.”

Scheduled routes that saw the biggest increase in October were Cologne (+1855%), Toulouse (+363.2%), Split (+121.5%), Barcelona (+76.7%) and Hannover (+76.5%). Charter services to Jamaica (+37.9%), Italy (+25.3%), Mexico (+23.8%) and Cyprus (+19.6%) also experienced significant growth.

Scheduled traffic in October accounted for 83.6% of all traffic, with charter flights making up the remaining 16.4%