UNITED KINGDOM. Heathrow Airport recorded the busiest July in its history, with over 8 million passengers.
In addition, the previous weekly record was broken for three consecutive weeks from July 8 to 28, with more than 1.8 million passengers being handled each time.
Thanks to this record performance, the airport became Europe’s busiest airport with 47.8 million passengers between January and July, leaving Amsterdam Schiphol, Frankfurt, Madrid and Paris Charles de Gaulle airports behind by millions.
Passenger traffic rose 4.2% last month as Heathrow Airport recorded its highest ever departure volume in the week beginning 22 July, when most schools in England were closed for the summer holidays – more than 140,000 direct passengers were counted each day.
Venice and Larnaca were among the most popular destinations in July. In addition to Dubai and New York JFK airports, Hamad International and Dublin airports were also among the newest routes, with 1 million passengers travelling to and from Heathrow this year.
Orlando and other major US cities such as Chicago, San Francisco, Boston and Dallas also recorded significant growth.
Despite the notable increase in passenger numbers, Heathrow Airport said it lost 90,000 transfer passengers as a result of the new Electronic Travel Authorizations (ETAs), a government system that requires all visitors from around the world who are not legal residents of the UK to pay a fee of £10 (US$13) to enter or transit the airport.
Heathrow CEO Thomas Woldbye said: “Team Great Britain’s performance in Paris was an inspiration to the nation and to Team Heathrow. We broke passenger records almost every day in July and we are pursuing our unprecedented target of handling 8 million passengers in a single month.
“I am proud that despite some potential challenges that could have tripped us up, our team kept the goal of making each trip better in mind and made a medal-winning start to the summer vacation.” ✈
