Birmingham toasts record-breaking month

Birmingham Airport has announced that it handled 730,307 passengers in March, breaking the previous traffic record for the month.

The overall figure was made up of 595,306 scheduled travellers and 135,001 charter passengers spread across the airport's two terminals.

Birmingham's traffic flow in March represents an 8.4 per cent increase on the previous year and followed a similarly successful February, which saw a record 635,000 travellers passing through.

Routes within the EU were among the most successful, with passenger growth of 10.8 per cent, followed by non-EU services (9.7 per cent) and domestic flights (0.9 per cent).

A number of mainstream scheduled services from Birmingham saw year-on-year increases in passenger numbers in March, including Barcelona (189 per cent), Lyon (43 per cent) and Glasgow (18 per cent).

Peter Vella, business development director at the Midlands hub, said: "It is the second straight month of record-breaking passenger figures for the airport, which is obviously great news as we strive to break the ten million passenger barrier this year.

"We are delighted to have seen flybe launch new routes to Inverness and Newquay in March, which once again increases the choice available to passengers flying from their local airport."