Birmingham International Airport is celebrating its busiest ever November after figures released today confirmed that the Midlands' premier airport is continuing to defy the current economic uncertainty.
During the month the Airport handled 620,283 passengers, including 527,727 scheduled passengers and 92,556 charter passengers spread across the two passenger terminals; an increase of 1.6% over the previous year.
Paul Kehoe, Birmingham Airport's Chief Executive Officer, said, "To be celebrating a record November is great news, particularly given the current economic conditions. The Airport continues to perform above the national average, with figures once again looking likely to be considerably down across the majority of other UK airports. However, the outlook for the coming months looks challenging for the entire industry and we cannot expect Birmingham to be immune to the economic slowdown."
"Nevertheless, it is an extremely exciting time for everyone involved with the Airport as we await a decision on the proposed runway extension on the 15, a day which will also see the launch of Turkish Airlines' five-weekly service to Istanbul, which is a brand new route for the Airport. In addition, we are looking forward to the launch of Ryanair's new ski routes to Grenoble and Cuneo as well as Thomson's service to La Romana, all launching before Christmas."
In November, growth was achieved on EU routes of 8.3%, non-EU routes of 3.9% while the Irish Republic saw an increase of 2.1%.
Scheduled routes that experienced growth in November include: Shannon (+62.2%), Inverness (+57.6%), Alicante (+54.9%), Prague (+52.3%), Tenerife (+48.7%), Malaga (+47.9%), Bratislava (+20.7%), Dusseldorf (+17.7%), Dubai (+12.6%), Zurich (+8.5%), Paphos (+3.1%), Munich (+2.6%), Milan (+2.1%) and Dundee (+1.1%).
Charter traffic which experienced growth were Turkey (+748.1%), Egypt (+68.1%), Mexico (+9.1%), Barbados (+3.2%) and Portugal (+1.7%).
Scheduled traffic accounted for 85.1% of the total passenger traffic in November whilst charter passengers made up the remaining 14.9%.
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