London Heathrow wins gold for busiest airport in Europe

In July, nearly 8 million passengers travelled through London Heathrow, with the UK hub retaining its gold spot on the podium as the busiest airport in Europe for the first half of the year. This is ahead of Amsterdam Schiphol, Frankfurt, Madrid and Paris Charles de Gaulle by millions of passengers.

Heathrow had never surpassed 1.8m passengers in a week before July 2024. However, this has now been achieved three weeks in a row (08-28 July), with the airport continuing to break its own record.

Six of the busiest departure days for the airport were the in the week the schools started summer holidays (22 July). Over 140,000 passengers directly departed and almost 140,000 bags left the airport each day. Heathrow performed well, collaborating with their partners, with no material impacts on flights from the recent global IT outage or protesting activity.

Venice and Larnaca proved popular destinations for those jetting off for some summer sun, as Doha and Dublin joined Dubai and 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 experienced an 8% increase in cargo tonnage in July 2024 compared to July 2023. This strong performance underscores Heathrow’s position as the UK’s leading air cargo hub, boosting the UK economy, helping drive exports, tourism and investment across the country. 

While Heathrow continues to attract new routes and record passenger numbers, the latest data following the introduction of the ETA shows that Heathrow 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 their hub competitiveness, and they have urged the Government to review the inclusion of airside transit passenger, arguing that every bit of extra competitiveness that Government can deliver for aviation will help deliver vital growth for the whole of the UK economy.

Heathrow CEO Thomas Woldbye issued this statement: “Team GB’s performance in Paris has been an inspiration to the nation and to Team Heathrow. 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.”