10 RECORD MONTHS IN A ROW AS AIRPORT ENJOYS BUSIEST-EVER OCTOBER PASSENGER NUMBERS
• EU-scheduled services up 16% • 39,000 passengers up on previous best in October 2016
Last month’s school break helped Glasgow Airport record its busiest-ever October after more than 928,000 people travelled through its doors, representing a 5% increase on 2016’s passenger numbers.
EU-scheduled services were up 16% on the same period in 2016 thanks to additional capacity and strong demand on a number of city break routes including Milan, Valencia and Lisbon.
October saw the introduction of two new Ryanair routes to Madrid and Krakow, while Lufthansa announced plans to launch a new daily flight to Frankfurt in March 2018. The German carrier’s summer seasonal weekly route to Munich was also significantly improved with passengers now be able to fly up to four times per week from Glasgow to the Bavarian capital all year round.
International traffic was up 9.5% on last year due to strong demand for winter sun destinations as thousands of families jetted off during the October school break and long-haul routes to North America and Dubai also increased by 2.5%.
Celtic’s Champions League home and away double header against Bayern Munich also boosted October’s passenger numbers with a significant number of fans travelling through the airport to the games in Munich and Glasgow.
The launch of Flybe’s new London Southend Airport ensured domestic performance remained on par with last year’s passenger numbers. The addition of the new route, which will operate up to nine times per week, takes the total number of daily flights between Glasgow and the six airports in and around London to 32.
Amanda McMillan, managing director of Glasgow Airport, said: ““It’s been another tremendous month for passenger growth and route development at the airport.
“Each month so far in 2017 has been a record breaker and our success is a direct result of the hard work and effort we put in to continually improving the airport’s route network to provide our customers with a greater destination choice.
“We’re thrilled to add both Madrid and Krakow to our growing list of EU-scheduled services and this year’s October school break was one of our busiest ever with more than 167,000 passengers heading off on their holidays from the airport.
“Looking ahead, November is already shaping up to be a really busy month with a number of events and conferences drawing visitors to the city.
“We also expect to see an increase in demand across many of our EU-scheduled services towards the end of the month as passengers head off for weekend breaks to explore traditional Christmas markets on routes such as Dusseldorf, Prague, Brussels, Berlin and now Munich.”