Bumper Christmas helps Heathrow Airport to record breaking year
A bumper Christmas helped Heathrow Airport notch a record number of passengers in 2024, but the airport is already setting its sights on fresh heights for 2025.
Overall, 83.9m passengers passed through the UK’s largest airport in 2024, a 5.9 per cent increase on the year before. This was over 3m more than the previous record set in 2019.
December saw more than 7m travellers pass through , which was 5.6 per cent higher than 2023.
Christmas Day, normally one of the quietest days of the year, saw record passenger numbers.
A total of 160,000 passengers set off for their winter break on 25 December, a 13 per cent increase on the previous record from 2023.
“2024 was an exciting and a record-breaking year at Heathrow,” Thomas Woldbye, Heathrow’s boss said.
Looking into 2025, Heathrow forecasted 84.2m passengers, which would be a new record. “With grey Mondays encouraging holiday bookings, 2025 is off to a strong start,” it said.
To help cater to the ever-increasing number of passengers, the airport said it would be investing over £1bn to make the airport “fit for the future”.
“In 2025, our journey towards better value for our customers will continue by investing in the kind of facilities our passengers and airlines are looking for. We aim to become more innovative to ensure that our airport delivers for the whole of the UK,” Woldbye said.