THE NUMBER of passengers at Birmingham Airport has exceeded pre-pandemic levels for the first time.
Bosses say customer numbers for October were higher than the same month in 2019.
Some 1,106,000 people travelled through the Midlands transport hub compared to 1,101,000 four years ago.
Tom Screen, aviation director for the airport, said: “Last month our customer numbers were 100.4% of what they were October 2019 – officially the first month we’ve surpassed pre-pandemic numbers, having been hovering in the high nineties for quite a while.
“It’s good to hit this milestone as we continue to recover from Covid. With more routes, more airlines and more based aircraft, it’s no surprise we’re seeing more customers.
“Meanwhile construction of our state-of-the-art new security hall is due to be complete by June 2024. This is part of £300million of upgrades to BHX planned in the coming decade. We’re on our way to becoming a bigger, better, greener airport for our customers.”
According to the airport in 2019/20 BHX saw more than 12million customers through its doors – when Covid struck numbers declined by more than 90 per cent to just 1million in 2020/21.
In 2021/22, with Covid still wreaking havoc, customer volumes rose slightly to three million.
When the Government reopened the borders in March 2022, customers surged back and in 2022/23 those travelling through Birmingham Airport soared to 10.5million.
