Last month was Manchester Airport’s busiest December and Christmas on record with more than 1.8m passengers using the airport -.an increase of 20% on December 2015.
The UK’s third largest airport is also celebrating a record breaking year after adding more than 2million extra passengers in 2016. More than 25.6m passengers passed through the airport’s three terminals in the last 12 months an increase of 10.8% on 2015.
Spain and the Canary Islands saw the biggest growth in 2016, with an extra 1.1m people travelling there in 2016 compared to the prior year. That was helped by an increase in frequencies from existing carriers, and the launch of new services.
The USA also saw significant growth with an additional 175,000 passengers travelling to the States thanks to additional frequency to New York and new services to Boston and Los Angeles with Thomas Cook Airlines and Houston with Singapore Airlines.
The top 10 most popular international destinations in 2016 from Manchester Airport were:
1. Amsterdam
2. Dublin
3. Dubai
4. Tenerife
5. Alicante
6. Palma
7. Malaga
8. Paris
9. Faro
10. Orlando
Ken O’Toole, Manchester Airport CEO, said: Last year was an historic one that saw a number of major milestones celebrated at the airport. Passing 25million passengers in a year was a huge achievement and we also saw the launch a number of key long haul services to the likes of Beijing, Houston and Los Angeles commence.
“We expect continued growth in 2017, with route launches to San Francisco, Boston and Muscat to come in the Spring. Looking ahead to the rest of the year we continue to look at expanding our route network to ensure we connect the North to the rest of the world.”
