Bristol Airport braced for busy summer with 1.8m passengers forecast

Bristol Airport has recruited staff across a range of roles as it anticipates summer passenger numbers will increase to about 1.8 million.

New employees are working in posts ranging from engineering to marketing and firefighting to finance.

The airport has added new destinations this year including Seville, Reus, Bari, Cape Verde and Thessaloniki, the second largest city in Greece.

One of the busiest weekends for departures is expected to be the start of the school holidays in the southwest, with about 80,000 people anticipated to use the airport between July 26-28.

Between August 21-24, which is one of the final weeks before schools return, about 160,000 passengers are expected to pass through the terminal.

Top beach holiday destinations include Palma, Alicante, Malaga and Faro, as well as Tenerife, Antalya, Ibiza and Rhodes.

The most popular cities remain Dublin, Amsterdam and Edinburgh, with Barcelona, Glasgow, Belfast and Paris also proving popular.

In the departure lounge, customers will see work continuing on the next phase of the airport’s £400 million transformation plan.

More than £60 million is being invested to improve the customer experience in the departures and arrivals areas.

There will be almost double the number of shops and restaurants, with the assisted travel lounge doubling in size.

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