LAST year was Liverpool John Lennon Airport’s busiest since 2012 with over 4.3 million passengers passing through its gates.
Figures out today show numbers up 8 percent on 2014, marking the first sustained period of growth since 2011.
"The airport enjoyed a busy Christmas and New Year period to round off what has been a strong 2015," said a spokesman "with December passenger throughput almost 15pc higher than the same period last year and the 11th consecutive month of growth with 310,000 passengers heading in and out."
2015 saw the number of airlines choosing to operate from Liverpool more than double to nine – the highest in the airport’s recent history since rival Manchester began allowing cut price airlines to take off and land there.
Among Liverpool's highlights, the year saw the start of Aer Lingus’ new service to Dublin with onward connections to North America and the time saving benefit of pre clearance of US Immigration and Customs at Dublin Airport.
2016 will see a number of new operators at Liverpool. Vueling commence their three times weekly flights to Barcelona at the end of March, Thomson Airways operate their weekly holiday flights to Palma in May and C. I. Travel Group will operate holiday flights to Guernsey every Saturday between early June and September. Czech Airlines will also be returning to operate twice weekly flights to Prague once again, also starting at the end of March.
Andrew Cornish, CEO of Liverpool John Lennon Airport commented, “Looking back, 2015 has been an excellent year for the airport. We have made significant progress, delivering on our objectives of increasing the number of airlines and choice of services available, with the business seeing a number of new routes coming to fruition, new airlines commence operations and work begin on a host of long overdue terminal improvements."
