More than 2.7m passengers passed through Stansted Airport last month, completing its busiest ever peak summer season.
The August figure alone was a new record for any month at Stansted, beating the previous high set in July, and represents an increase of 9.9% compared with the same month last year.
And it takes the airport’s combined passenger total for the period from June to August to 7.6m, a new record for the summer season as a whole.
The record for the busiest single day at Stansted was also broken for the second month in a row, with 94,785 passengers passing through the terminal on August 14. Together, July and August this year now account for all of the airport’s 10 busiest days.
The rolling annual passenger for the 12 months to the end of August was 6.4% up compared with the previous 12 months at 25.4m, also beating a previous record set in July when the figure passed 25m for the first time.
Stansted Airport’s commercial director, Martin Jones, said: “The main summer holiday period saw London Stansted welcome more passengers than at any other time in the airport’s history as over 7.6m people took to the skies to take advantage of the 190 destinations on offer across our extensive route network.
“The summer schedule was boosted by new flights and holidays from jet2.com plus more passengers than ever flying with Ryanair. Long-haul flights to destinations such as Orlando and Cancun also proved popular.”
He added: “This record breaking growth highlights more passengers than ever are choosing Stansted as their gateway to and from the eastern region and London, and we are working hard to add even more choice and new routes.”
Stansted plans to introduce more check-in desks, more seating in the departure lounge and additional car parking spaces, ahead of a £130m investment in a dedicated arrivals building.
It is also in the early stages of seeking permission to increase the cap on annual passenger numbers from 35m to 44.5m, the maximum possible with its current, single, runway – a move opposed by the Stop Stansted Expansion group.
Cargo volumes at Stansted also continued to rise last month with more than 21,500 tonnes of goods passing through the airport, up 1.4% over August 2016. The rolling annual total increased by 4.0% over the previous 12 months to more than 259,400 tonnes.
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