London Heathrow has this week announced the handling of 5.8m passengers last month, as growth continues.
The airport has said that last month was a “record number”, as the ramp up towards the Summer season continues.
Without further ado, let’s get into it…
The Numbers from London Heathrow…
London Heathrow Airport handled 5.8m passengers last month, representing a 11.6% increase.
As for the rolling 12 month period, they have handled 80.2m passengers, a 20.1% increase.
Passengers from the European Union and North America accounted for most of this count last month.
Africa saw a relative drop for January-February by 1.7%, but in the last 12 months, this has increased by 15.6%.
Other than that, the figures remains strong for London Heathrow.
Commenting on the 11.6% rise in numbers was London Heathrow Airport CEO Thomas Woldbye:
“It was wonderful to welcome so many passengers for the first holiday peak of 2024, setting a new Heathrow record.”
“While we are serving more people, visitors to the UK are spending less since the removal of tax-free shopping, impacting businesses across the country.”
“The Spring Budget was a missed opportunity to give the whole tourism, hospitality and retail sector the support it needs to compete internationally.”
Woldbye’s words on the Spring Budget is representative on the boost that the UK aviation sector needs.
UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt decided to increase Air Passenger Duty Tax on non-economy fliers.
This was lambasted by the head of IATA Willie Walsh, who dubbed it a “cash grab”.
As well as this, cuts to encourage travel would have been welcomed by the Chancellor, but to no avail.
Such stimulation for the UK aviation sector would have optimised growth even further than what is expected for Summer 2024.
Getting Ready for the Summer…
As we inch closer and closer to the Summer 2024 season, London Heathrow will no doubt expect significant peaks.
With over 450,000 movements in the last 12 months, the airport is wanting to take advantage of the high growth.
Such double-digit growth is what the airport will want to continue going into the busy Summer 2024 season.
With London Heathrow typically being a very slot-constrained airport, they shouldn’t have problems with rising passenger numbers.
Overall…
In conclusion, London Heathrow performed strongly last month, and will want to continue that success moving forward.
As we get closer to the Summer 2024 season, we will no doubt see numbers rise with the peak demand periods.
Of course, expansion is still a topical discussion for the airport.
If they wish to grow further than what they can, they need to start thinking about this sooner rather than later.
With many airlines transitioning over to Gatwick, all eyes will be on what decisions London Heathrow will make this year.
Click the banner to subscribe to our weekly newsleter.
Click the photo to join our WhatsApp channel so then you can stay up to date with everything going on in the aviation industry!
