London Stansted Airport saw more than 2.7 million passengers travel through the airport in July as the summer holiday season began, a rise of 7.4% on July last year.
“As the main summer holiday season firmly gets underway, July is always a very busy month for us and this year we have welcomed a record number of passengers to the airport,” said chief executive of Stansted Airport, Ken O’Toole, with Spain, France and Germany the destination countries recording the largest growth in terms of passengers flown.
The airport reported the increase in passengers was “despite airline industrial action, ongoing weather disruption and air traffic challenges across Europe throughout the month.”
The busiest ever July at the airport also helped boost the total passenger numbers for the past 12 months to just under 27 million, a 7.3% increase on the previous year.
O’Toole continued: “We always work hard to ensure that going into the peak season our passengers have the best possible service and this year we introduced a number of improvements to our operation including recruiting more security staff, the introduction of new Airport Ambassador roles, creating more check-in desks, improved access to the forecourt and the opening of a new 350 seat restaurant.”
The airport is investing £600m over the next five years in transforming the airport experience for passengers, O’Toole explained, adding: “The main elements of which will be the construction of a new arrivals terminal, a re-vamp of the existing terminal, upgrades to the baggage system and more car parking spaces.”
“With limited spare capacity at other airports in the South East, Stansted will deliver 50 percent of London’s expected passenger growth over the next decade. Given this anticipated growth, we have applied for permission to raise the number of passengers we serve to 43 million a year, with a firm commitment to do so without any additional flights or noise impacts beyond our current permissions.”
The airport also saw more than 22,000 tonnes of goods passing through the dedicated cargo facilities in July, an increase of 4.5% on July 2017, bringing the rolling 12-month total to nearly 262,000 tonnes.
Written by: Kimberley Young
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