Manchester Airport set for bank holiday boom as 400,000 passengers set to fly in or out of Northern gateway

Manchester Airport is set for its busiest weekend of the year with an estimated 400,000 passengers coming through the UK’s global gateway in the North over the bank holiday.

More than 103,000 people will pass through the airport today (Friday) – with the most popular destinations including Palma, Dublin and Antalya.

The August bank holiday comes after a successful peak summer season, during which nearly 13m people have travelled through Manchester Airport, with positive feedback having been received from passengers.

In a survey of nearly 1,000 travellers in July and August, 93% rated their overall satisfaction as good, very good or excellent. That has been driven by a significant recruitment campaign which has seen the airport welcome more than 3,000 new employees since April 2022 – this includes its 100-person resilience team, trained in a range of disciplines across the airport so it can step in and help wherever problems occur.

That has led to 96% of passengers passing through security in under 15 minutes and almost all of them getting through in less than half an hour. During the summer, the airport also received the highest possible rating for the service it provides to those with assisted travel needs.

Manchester Airport Managing Director Chris Woodroofe said:

“Manchester Airport is proud to give the people of the North easy and affordable access to an ever-increasing list of global destinations. We are committed to providing a great experience to all passengers, and feedback this summer season in particular has been extremely positive, building on the strong Christmas and Easter getaways we delivered.

“This has been driven by investment in our people – we have recruited more than 3,000 colleagues since April 2022 and set up our brand new 100-person resilience team, trained in a variety of roles so it can respond at short-notice to solve a wide range of challenges. It is also driven by investment in our facilities, especially the £1.3bn transformation of Terminal 2, through which more than 80% of our passengers will fly by 2025.

“Thanks to all that and more we’re going into the busiest weekend of the year feeling confident that we’ve delivered one of our best summers ever.”

The Top 5 destinations for travellers from Manchester this weekend will be:

Manchester

1)      Palma

2)      Antalya

3)      Dublin

4)      Dalaman

5)      Tenerife

Long haul flights are also proving popular with passengers this weekend – with 6,000 passengers taking advantage of the airport’s thrice daily flights to Dubai. Significant numbers will also be heading out to the theme parks of Orlando and the Middle Eastern hub of Doha.

All this is going on as work continues to further improve the airport through the £1.3bn Manchester Airport Transformation Programme. The brand new Terminal 2 is already open with the second phase of work on the terminal scheduled for completion in 2025.