Manchester airport set for a record year

Passenger NUMBERS leap for Manchester Airport

Manchester Airport - which is part owned by Oldham Council - is on course to smash its all-time record of 22 million passengers.

The number using the UK’s third-busiest airport increased again last month, with nearly five per cent more people using the gateway this September than last.

Around 2.3 million people travelled through, up from 2.2 million in the same period last year, taking the rolling annual total to 21.7 million passengers.

Domestic passenger numbers rose by eight per cent more than the previous year; international traffic rose by more than nine per cent.

The increases followed the launch of a £500,000 investment by airport owner Manchester Airport Group to extend its successful Fly Manchester marketing campaign - targeting the four million passengers from its catchment area that travel to other airports when they could travel the same routes from Manchester.

During September, Delta Airlines announced a daily non-stop service between Manchester and New York from June 2, 2015.

Virgin Atlantic is to start a daily non-stop Manchester to Atlanta service. Ryanair’s summer 2015 schedule includes new routes to Eindhoven and Shannon, adding more flights and improved schedules to Alicante, Lisbon and Madrid.

Flybe has secured a share agreement with Helsinki-based airline Finnair and will offer passengers travel through Flybe’s Manchester hub to Finnair destinations in Finland and on to the Scandinavian airline’s wider global network, which includes 15 Asian destinations.

The amount of freight carried through the airport also saw an increase of 1.7 per cent.