Busiest day of year for flight departures expected today

Today (Friday, August 29) is set to be the busiest day for flight departures from the UK throughout the whole of 2025.

The expected 3,271 flights scheduled from UK airports equates to more than 500,000 seats, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium.

This makes it the busiest day for UK departures since pre-pandemic October 2019.

The numbers are also higher than the top day last year and are projected to reach 92% of the busiest day in 2019, when there were 3,559 departures.

Heathrow will see the highest volume of departures, followed by Gatwick, Manchester, Stansted and Edinburgh airports.

The top international destinations are projected to be Dublin, Amsterdam, Majorca, Alicante and Malaga.

EasyJet is projected to be the largest airline during the day, followed by British Airways and Ryanair.

The calculations follow Civil Aviation Authority figures showing a 3% rise in passenger numbers to 81 million in the second quarter of the year.