Member Article

Manchester Airport enjoys rapid passenger rises

Passenger numbers rose at Manchester Airport across the month of May 2013, with 1.9m passing people through the doors.

Figures showed almost an 11% rise in comparison with May last year, and took the airport over the 20m passenger mark during a 12 month period for the first time since May 2009.

This news makes Manchester the fastest growing airport in the UK’s top ten largest airports, with passenger numbers rising by 10.6% in May to mark the airport’s 13th month of growth in a row.

Performance improvements were attributed to continuing long haul destinations such as Dubai, Washington DC and Singapore, as well as the airport’s efforts to position itself as the “low cost airport of choice” for the North West region.

Ken O’Toole, Chief Commercial Officer for MAG, owners of Manchester Airport, said: “Reaching our target of 20 million passengers ahead of schedule was testament to an increasing network of destinations and the hard work we’ve undertaken to highlight this message across the North of England.

“That has included our recent ‘Fly Manchester’ campaigns to publicise the range of options here from carriers like United Airlines, American Airlines, Ryanair, Monarch, easyJet, Jet2.com, Germanwings and Norwegian to destinations across the globe.

“We continue to see airlines bringing more routes online for passengers using Manchester with new destinations such as Aegean’s service to the Greek capital, Athens, and Flybe adding their 19th destination from Manchester to Waterford in Ireland.

“The start of June saw Egyptair launch a new five times a week service to Cairo, proving that airlines are continuing to recognise the opportunity that Manchester provides in serving the North of England market and we want to continue to support further growth from our airlines.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Miranda Dobson .