London Stansted Airport has unveiled its opening figures for January 2023.
The figures showed the UK’s third busiest airport served 1.82 million passengers in the first month of the year, compared to 1.9 million passengers in January 2019 – showing it is nearly back to pre-pandemic figures.
This figure is also the highest percentage achieved since the lifting of travel restrictions in 2022.
Overall, the airport has seen a continued improvement after reporting a successful 2022, with over 24.4 million passengers passing through. This represents a huge 217% increase on 2021’s passenger figures.
More good news
But the announcement wasn’t all about passengers as 6,914 flights departed throughout last month.
And security checks have been much quicker with the majority of customers getting through in under 15 minutes.
Not only that, but the Essex airport has employed 766 new staff ready for the summer months, after the shortage issues across the country that left last year’s holidaymakers reeling.
Strong performance
Gareth Powell, Managing Director for London Stansted said: “I’m really pleased the team here at London Stansted.”
“They delivered yet another strong passenger performance in January, achieving 94% of passenger volumes for the same month pre-pandemic, and building on the positive growth we experienced last year after travel restrictions were lifted.”
“Im equally delighted we continue to provide a smooth and efficient security operation for our passengers, which we aim to maintain as we welcome many more passengers this week as they head off on half-term breaks, and as we build up to the peak summer months”.
“To meet rising passenger demand, we are recruiting even more colleagues to join our teams, as are many of our business partners across the airport.”
