Emirates reports busiest month on record in the UK

Gulf carrier Emirates has reported its busiest July on record in the UK, with 208,000 passengers departing from its six UK gateways: London Heathrow, London Gatwick, Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle and Glasgow. 

Passenger numbers were highest in London with 40,600 and 73,500 people flying out of Gatwick and Heathrow respectively.

This strong performance was reflected across its regional gateways, with nearly 94,000 passengers departing on Emirates flights from airports outside of the capital. The most popular destinations from the UK were Dubai, Australia, Thailand, Mauritius, and Singapore.

July saw the largest number of passengers recorded in any single month for Gatwick, Newcastle (11,700) and Birmingham (26,000). 18,200 passengers flew from Glasgow last month, whilst Manchester saw its highest July figures on record at 38,000.

A contributing factor to Emirates’ record passenger numbers in July, is an increase in its UK capacity. Earlier this year, Emirates replaced two Boeing 777s, which operated daily services from Gatwick and Manchester, with A380s, increasing capacity by 11.5% across its UK network.

Laurie Berryman, Emirates vice president, UK, commented: “Summer is always a busy time for us, but the significant boost to our UK capacity means we’ve been able to fly more passengers than ever before. Our performance in July is a clear reflection of the growing demand for international travel across the country and it’s particularly encouraging to see traffic levels increase across our regional gateways as travellers become less dependent on the London hubs.

Further to the two Airbus A380s introduced in 2015, Emirates launched a third daily service to Birmingham on 1st August, operated by a Boeing 777. From 1stJanuary 2016, a third daily Airbus A380 service will operate from Gatwick, replacing a Boeing 777, which will mean all eight daily London flights will be operated by A380s.