More than 575,000 through Birmingham in January

Birmingham Airport has revealed that it handled some 576,130 passengers in January, which was a slight fall of 0.1 per cent on the previous year.

The number of people travelling through Birmingham last month included 476,507 scheduled passengers and 99,623 charter customers.

Joe Kelly, acting managing director of the airport, said that the slight decline in activity in January was offset by a positive business development.

"We had some fantastic news in January with Ryanair announcing a base here at Birmingham and the introduction of 20 new routes from Ryanair, commencing onwards from April," he said.

"This is excellent news for the airport and the region giving passengers the convenience and choice of flying from their local airport to these destinations."

Some parts of Birmingham Airport's network saw growth in January, including the Channel Isles (11.9 per cent), the Republic of Ireland (9.5 per cent) and non-EU routes (6.3 per cent).

Particular destinations to benefit from an increase in passengers from the hub, partly as a result of new route launches, included Barcelona (180 per cent), Geneva (94 per cent) and Arrecife (88 per cent).