Half-term boom: Stansted expects 400,000 departures
Over 400,000 people are expected to fly from Stansted during the October half-term, according to forecasts released today.
Stansted has predicted that more than 800,0000 passengers will pass through its gates between 21 and 30 October, with Friday 21 being the busiest day.
This is up on last year’s levels as 500,000 passengers were reported over the same period.
The majority of Britons will opt for short-haul destinations such as Turkey, Spain or Portugal while Dubai appears to be extremely popular for long-haul trips.
Chief operating officer Jonathan Fowler said the airport was gearing up for “a very busy half-term holiday” following its busiest summer in the last three years.
Stansted recently posted a 127 per cent increase year-on-year as 2.6 million passengers passed through its gates in August. Levels, nonetheless, remained 9.3 per cent down on 2019.
Fowler added that during the summer the airport was able “to deliver a stable and resilient operation with few flight cancellations and short queue times.”
Stansted emerged unscathed from the travel chaos that plagued rivals such as Heathrow or Gatwick, which were forced to implement caps on both passengers and flights to guarantee smoother operations.
In July, the north London hub was crowned the UK’s best airport as cancellations represented only 0.3 per cent of total flights – compared to Gatwick’s 3.2 per cent.