London City airport has reported record passenger numbers helped by an increase in business travellers.
The airport, which it says has the highest proportion of business travellers of any airport in the UK, recorded its busiest ever week last week.
Almost 85,000 passengers travelled through LCY during the week commencing November 9 – a 27 per cent increase on the same period last year and a 5.5 per cent rise on the previous record, set in July 2013.
Thursday 13 November was the busiest day ever at LCY, with 15,899 passengers flying through – 1.3 per cent higher than the previous record set on Friday 23 May 2013.
LCY said with 60 per cent of passengers using LCY for business travel, it indicates the "return to strength of the business travel market".
"The signs are very encouraging. Employers are growing in confidence, releasing travel budgets, and airlines are growing in confidence, adding new routes and increasing frequencies to offer customers more choice," said LCY's CEO Declan Collier.
"Just last month, Flybe launched services out of London City, boosting connectivity to the UK regions in a move that was welcomed by the Government and illustrating the increasing appetite for airlines to pursue business travellers. Meanwhile, our largest airline partner British Airways is continuing to fill its planes with more and more passengers and expanding its offering to meet demand."
Collier said it's now important the airport is allowed to grow and develop infrastructure to cope with rising demand.
“We must develop that infrastructure to continue to offer the convenience, speed and customer experience that we pride ourselves on and for which people choose to travel from LCY, in turn supporting more than 2,000 jobs on campus and driving investment in the Royal Docks and wider East London area," he added.
Last week, LCY installed its first ePassport gates in the airport's immigration hall.