London Heathrow has been boosted by a surge in transatlantic passengers this year with the UK hub now offering a record number of daily flights to the US.
The overall transatlantic market has been recovering quickly this year, with scheduled capacity between Europe and North America hitting 98 per cent of 2019 levels in May.
Heathrow said it was at the forefront of this post-pandemic charge and has “increased its lead over EU rivals” for flights to the US.
This rise in services helped to fuel a 34 per cent year-on-year increase in transatlantic traffic from the London airport, with total passenger numbers in May reaching 1.88 million – ranking only behind the EU (2.28 million) in terms of traffic.
“Heathrow currently has more daily flights than ever before between the UK and US as airlines switch capacity to North Atlantic routes and away from European and east Asian markets, which have been slower to recover,” said the airport in a statement.
The UK hub added that one quarter of all passengers flying between Europe and the US in May flew through Heathrow. There are currently 248 daily departures and arrivals to and from Heathrow to 31 destinations in the US, including British Airways’ new route to Cincinnati, which started last week - Heathrow is the only European hub to have a direct connection to the Ohio city.
Overall, Heathrow catered for 6.7 million passengers in May, up by 26 per cent on May 2022, with traffic figures for the first five months of 2023 increasing by nearly 50 per cent year-on-year to 30 million. Passenger numbers were boosted by three bank holidays in the UK during the month.
Heathrow’s CEO John Holland-Kaye added: “The unrivalled choice of destinations and high frequency to cities like New York make flights from Heathrow vital trade routes with the US, Britain’s most important export market.”
But it is not all good news for the airport with security staff set to strike at two of Heathrow’s terminals for 31 days this summer.
“Heathrow has successfully managed eight days of strikes during the busiest days in May, with no delays at security and no flight cancellations thanks to a strong contingency resource,” stressed Holland-Kaye.
“We have been building that contingency team ahead of the summer season and do not anticipate cancellations as a result of any future strike action.”