Birmingham Airport has recorded its largest monthly rise in passengers for more than eight years.
The airport recorded a 10.6 per cent passenger increase in January compared to the same month last year – the first time it has experienced double digit growth since December 2005.
In total, 549,489 travellers passed through the airport during the first month of the year, and long-haul traffic saw a major rise of 23.8 per cent compared to January 2013.
Significant growth was also seen on a number of scheduled short-haul services, including Chambery (+233.6 per cent), Fuerteventura (+175.6 per cent), Waterford (+127.9 per cent), Arrecife (+123.2 per cent), Madeira (+113.3 per cent), Stuttgart (+106.9 per cent), and Milan (+73.8).
Charter flights experiencing double digit growth in January were Barbados (+55.1 per cent) and Mexico (+17.9 per cent), as holiday makers escape the wet and windy January weather in search of sun and sea.
This growth comes after the airport handled more than nine million passengers in 2013 – breaking the nine million passenger mark for the first time in a calendar year since 2009.
Paul Kehoe, Birmingham Airport’s chief executive, said: “These January figures show that more and more people are realising the benefits of using Birmingham as an alternative to other airports to fly for business and leisure.
“This is a great start to 2014 and we look forward to offering even more choice this year as several new routes are launched and extra capacity is made available on key routes.”
The split between scheduled and charter flights in January was 88.6 per cent scheduled and 11.4 per cent charter.
