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Manchester flying high as it sets new record of 22.3 mln passengers

Xinhua, April 10, 2015 Adjust font size:

Manchester Airport reported Friday it had broken its all-time passenger record with 22.32 million passengers flying through Britain's third biggest airport in the last financial year.

The passenger number beat the previous record set in 2006 when 22.26 million journeyed through Manchester.

The new record in the airport's 77-year history represents growth of 7.5 percent year on year, with March 2015, the final month of the financial year, seeing growth close to 10 percent.

Ken O'Toole, the airport's managing director said: "We have worked closely with our airline partners to cement and maintain this continued growth, increasing capacity and frequency on existing routes, plus confirming new services, particularly to serve demand that exists from Manchester in the long-haul market."

Recent long-haul growth out of Manchester Airport includes Cathay Pacific adding a service to Hong Kong, which makes Manchester the only airport outside of London with a direct, non-stop service to China.

"With Manchester Airport having spare runway capacity, we can offer an alternative to traveling via a congested London airport. We have made great headway to unlock the spare capacity at Manchester and are in talks with a range of carriers to further capitalize on the potential we offer," O'Toole said.

Through Virgin Atlantic's partnership with Delta, capacity has increased on the route to Atlanta. Delta also added a brand new service to New York JFK which starts next month.

May will also see Manchester become the only airport outside of London to offer a direct route to Miami, and at the same time growth in flights to the Middle East continues as Gulf carriers increase frequencies and capacity. Endit