London Heathrow enjoyed a positive start to 2024 with passenger numbers of just under six million passing through the airport during January.
The UK hub catered for 5.996 million travellers last month, which was a 9.4 per cent increase on January 2023. The figure was only slightly below the monthly record for January of 6.1 million passengers which was set in 2020, just weeks before the Covid-19 pandemic largely grounded international air travel.
The EU (1.8 million passengers) and North America (1.3 million) were the top destinations for Heathrow in January. Although the highest year-on-year increase was to the Asia Pacific region, which recorded a rise of 18.3 per cent to reach 905,000 passengers in January. This came a year after China and other key destinations in the region finally reopened to international travellers after the pandemic.
Heathrow’s new CEO Thomas Woldbye said the year “has got off to a strong start” in 2024 and the airport was ready for the first “peak” travel period during February’s half-term school holiday.
The airport seems to be maintaining its momentum after experiencing its busiest ever December at the end of 2023 when 6.6 million passengers travelled through Heathrow during the festive month.