A record 7.05m passengers used Heathrow in August 2014, a rise of 1.3% making it Heathrow’s busiest ever month.

Airport management said today that this is the first time the airport has handled more than 7m passengers in a single month and the busy summer also led to the airport’s busiest day on 17 August, with 241,412 passengers passing through its terminals.

The airport has benefited from larger, fuller aircraft with load factors increasing by one percentage point to 83.7%, while average passenger numbers per aircraft rose by 1.7% to 171.8.

Within emerging markets Heathrow management points to Mexico up 15.3%, China plus-9.3% and India rising by 3.7%. Cargo – a good barometer of healthy business trading levels – was also up by 7.5% overall, increasing 58% to Turkey; 33% to Russia; 32% to Brazil; 30% to Mexico; and 16% to China.

Highlighting the critical role that emerging markets play in the UK’s long-term sustainable growth, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) described Britain’s lack of hub capacity as a ‘ticking time bomb’ recently, calling on the Airports Commission to deliver a single hub solution as the only way to boost connections with the export markets of tomorrow

 

London Heathrow Terminal 5.

 

 

STRONG ARGUMENT FOR EXPANSION
Never one to miss an opportunity to promote Heathrow’s additional runway campaign, Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye added: “Record passenger numbers and strong cargo performance to emerging markets underline why British business is backing Heathrow. Heathrow is the only expansion option capable of delivering direct links to emerging markets like China that will be critical to future jobs, trade and economic growth in the UK.”

Heathrow and its affiliated airports all showed increases in the numbers of terminal passengers in August. Heathrow handled 7.05m passengers in August, a 1.3% increase over the same month in 2013 and 49.08m passengers between January and August 2014, a 1.6% rise on the same eight months last year.

Glasgow handled 782,400 passengers in August, a rise of 4.9% and 5.1m between January and August – a 3.9% rise. Aberdeen handled 339,700 passengers, an 8.8% rise in August and and 2.4m between January and August 2014 (+8.4%). Southampton handled 200,700 passengers, a rise of 2.8% in August and 1.2m in the first eight months of 2014, an increase of 4.6%.

A full A4 size summary table of Heathrow’s entire traffic picture for the month of August 2014 and the first eight months of this year can be found by clicking here.