News Release (17/08/12)
Passenger numbers at Bristol Airport topped 650,000 last month, making it the busiest July on record.
The number of people passing through the terminal was up 5.1 per cent year on year, and surpassed the previous July high recorded back in 2008.
Shaun Browne, Aviation Director at Bristol Airport, said:
“High passenger volumes have been driven by the strong performance of easyJet services and the popularity of the holidays offered by tour operators Tui and Thomas Cook. But it is not all one way traffic – figures for the first quarter show that around one in five passengers using Bristol Airport is an inbound visitor from overseas. Demand from business and leisure travellers also remained strong during the Olympics.”
This increase followed a 6.9 per cent year on year increase in passengers in June, meaning a total of over 1.2 million people used the Airport over the two month period. During this time security processing times have seen significant improvements as a result of the introduction of two new x-ray channels, and a second immigration point is now in use, easing congestion in the international arrivals area.
Once again, the rise in passengers was achieved with fewer flights as the total number of aircraft movements fell by 7.4 per cent as a result of airlines operating with high load factors on larger aircraft.
Shaun Browne added:
“It has been an encouraging summer so far and, while we know winter will be more challenging, we are pleased that new services to Copenhagen and Warsaw will commence in the next couple of months, and that Ryanair has extended its services to Barcelona Reus and Knock (Ireland West) to operate year-round.”