MANCHESTER Airport looks certain to break its all-time record number of passengers this year, with over 21.7 million passengers passing through the airport already in 2014.
The previous record is 22 million passengers.
“It’s a virtuous circle – the more people that use the airport, the more directs routes and new services our airline partners will offer."
Passenger numbers for September 2014 are up by 5% on the same period last year with 2.3m people travelling through the airport.
Domestic passenger numbers rose by 8% over the previous year and international traffic has again proved strong rising by over 9%.
The amount of freight carried through the airport also saw an increase of 1.7%, up from 8,134 tonnes to 8,272 tonnes year-on-year.
Manchester is the UK's third largest airport, behind London Heathrow which serves around 72 million passengers a year, and London Gatwick which sees 36 million passengers pass through every year.
The increases follow a new £500,000 investment by airport owner, the Manchester Airport Group (MAG) to extend its successful ‘Fly Manchester’ marketing campaign, targeting the four million passengers from its catchment area that travel to other airports when they could access the same routes direct from Manchester.
Manchester Airport Terminal 2
Ken O’Toole, Chief Commercial Officer for MAG, said:
“Our investment in the latest instalment of the campaign aims to promote Manchester as the option for long haul flights across Birmingham, Stoke, Stafford, Wolverhampton, Walsall, Dudley, Leeds and Bradford; as well as the low cost option across Merseyside, St Helens, Warrington and Wigan.
“September has proved to be a strong end to a great summer for us and the sustained increase in the number of passengers using this airport shows that we are having an impact in terms of raising awareness of the routes on offer from Manchester across our catchment area.
“It’s a virtuous circle – the more people that use the airport, the more directs routes and new services our airline partners will offer; while the more flight options and capacity this brings, enables and encourages more people to fly direct from Manchester – so it is a big win-win both for the regional economy and for the people living here.”
