Football and Eurovision fans helped Manchester airport report its busiest ever May – its 20th consecutive record-breaking month.
From: travelweekly.co.uk
Football and Eurovision fans helped Manchester airport report its busiest ever May – its 20th consecutive record-breaking month.
May is always a busy month for the hub, with families travelling during the half-term break, but this year’s total was boosted by Manchester United fans flying to Spain to watch their team in the Europa League final and people heading to Switzerland to see the Eurovision Song Contest.
Almost three million passengers in total passed through the airport last month, more than 130,000 up on May 2024.
About 10,000 Manchester United fans travelled to Bilbao for the Europa League final, including fans on more than 30 flights chartered specially for the game.
Sister airport Stansted also handled a record breaking 2.74 million passengers, boosted by thousands of Tottenham Hotspur supporters flying to Bilbao for the Europa League final.
The successful Spurs team also flew back into the airport with the trophy and were greeted with a celebratory water-arch on arrival.
Stansted’s passenger total was up 0.8% on the same month last year, beating the previous record high for May in 2024 by more than 21,000.
May also saw the opening of a new domestic arrivals building.
The most popular countries from Stansted were Spain, Italy and Turkey with the top individual destinations being Dublin, Istanbul and Edinburgh.
The top five non-connecting destinations from Manchester in May were Palma, Alicante, Antalya, Tenerife and Dalaman.
Two Turkish destinations in the top five for the first time this year reflects the continued growth in popularity of the country, said the airport.
Chris Woodroofe, airport managing director, said: “May was a great month. Not only have we now recorded 20 consecutive record-breaking months – but we’ve reached some key milestones in our transformation programme.
“Passengers during half-term were among the very first to experience the new security hall in Terminal 2 – it’s equipped with the latest scanners and helped make sure the vast majority of people waited for five minutes or less to get to security last month.”
Manchester Airport Group, which also operates Stansted and East Midlands airports, also revealed figures showing that more Manchester United shirts were sold at Manchester airport than those of rivals Manchester City.
Most popular football shirts sold in Manchester Airport:
1. Manchester United
2. Manchester City
3. England
4. Liverpool
5. England (Retro)
6. Leeds United
7. Arsenal
8. AC Milan
9. Inter Milan
10. Real Madrid
Top 10 football shirts sold across Manchester Airport Group:
1. Manchester United
2. Manchester City
3. England
4. Arsenal
5. Liverpool
6. England (Retro)
7. Chelsea
8. Leeds United
9. West Ham
10. Paris Saint Germain (PSG)