The total of more than 1.98m represented an increase of 5.8%, or around 109,000 passengers, compared with the same month last year and beat a previous record set in 2016, when Easter fell during March.
This took traffic for the five “winter” months from November to March to more than 9.17m, an increase of 280,000 compared with the previous high achieved last winter.
Routes recording the highest growth during the season included key business destinations such as Frankfurt, Copenhagen, Hanover and Munich, which a Stansted spokesman said underlined the airport’s role in supporting economic growth and competitiveness in the East of England.
The end of the winter schedule also marked the first anniversary of the start of flights from Stansted by leisure airline Jet2.com which, together with sister company Jet2 Holidays, has already carried more than 1m passengers to and from the airport.
This has helped the rolling annual passenger total at Stansted to reach 26.14m for the 12 months to the end of March, up 7.4m on the previous year.
Ken O’Toole, the airport’s chief executive, said: “London Stansted’s passenger numbers continue to increase at a rapid pace as we grow our route network, welcome new airline partners and provide even more choice.
“The airport enables millions of people each year to head off on well-earned holidays or visit family and friends but it’s also clear Stansted is a key enabler for economic growth through improving international connectivity and competitiveness which in turn helps make our region even more attractive to inward investment.
“We have seen really strong growth on a number of key business destinations across Europe as passenger numbers in March demonstrate.”
He added: “We have new routes to Dubai, the USA and Canada launching in the coming weeks, and have ambitions to add services to help access markets across China and India.
“This is a key focus for us as we know businesses and business people from across the region we serve want the choice and convenience of more long-haul destinations available from their local airport, saving them valuable time and money associated with flying from other London airports.”
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