Heathrow retained the top spot as Europe’s busiest airport in the first seven months of the year as almost eight million passengers passed through in July.
The London hub was ahead of Amsterdam Schiphol, Frankfurt, Madrid and Paris Charles de Gaulle following last month’s performance to give a total of 47.8 million passengers in the January-July period.
Heathrow had never previously surpassed 1.8 million passengers in a week but this was achieved three weeks in a row in July as the airport continues to break its own records.
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Six of its busiest ever departure days were seen in the week schools in England broke up for the summer holiday period from July 22, with more than 140,000 passengers flying out.
“Close collaboration with our partners meant that the airport has performed well with no material impacts on flights from the recent global IT outage or illegal protest activity,” Heathrow added.
But the airport revealed that the introduction of the Electric Travel Authorisation (ETA) meant that it has lost 90,000 transfer passengers on routes operating to and from the seven countries included in the scheme, since its introduction in 2023.
“This is devastating for our hub competitiveness,” an airport statement said.
“We urge government to review the inclusion of airside transit passengers, every little bit of extra competitiveness that government can deliver for aviation will help deliver vital growth for the whole of the UK economy.”
Popular destinations included Venice and Larnaca, while Doha and Dublin joined Dubai and New York JFK as the latest routes with one million passengers travelling to and from Heathrow this year.
There were also big boosts for Orlando and many other US destinations such as Chicago, San Francisco, Boston and Dallas.
Heathrow chief executive Thomas Woldbye said: “In July, we were smashing a passenger record almost every single day and we’re chasing down our never before seen goal of serving 8 million passengers in a single month.
“I’m proud that although there were a few potential challenges which could have caused us to stumble, our team remained focused on the prize of making every journey better and delivered a medal-winning start to the summer getaway.”