In numbers: UK airports set for record bank holiday weekend

David Casey August 24, 2017

UK airports are set to handle more than 23,000 aircraft movements over the forthcoming weekend – a record for the four-day August bank holiday period – with the amount of airline departure seats available topping the 2.1 million mark.

According to figures from air travel intelligence company OAG and analysis by Routesonline, there will be 23,405 arrivals and departures between Friday 25 August and Monday 28 August 2017, up by 600 flights on the same bank holiday weekend in 2016.

The total number of departure seats available will be 2,172,626, compared with 2,086,707 last year, across 13,323 flights. The statistics reveal the number of aircraft movements expected this weekend are almost 3,000 higher than a decade ago.

Airports

London Heathrow (LHR) will be the busiest airport, with a combined 5,357 arrivals and departures expected, followed by London Gatwick (3,611), Manchester (2,513) and London Stansted (2,062). In terms of departures alone, 2,679 flights will take off from Heathrow’s two runways.

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Destinations

Over the bank holiday weekend, the UK will be linked to a total of 380 international destinations. Amsterdam is the most popular overseas location, with 504 flights set to depart to the Dutch city, closely followed by Dublin on 468 departures, and Palma de Mallorca on 352.

The route with most capacity over the bank holiday will be between Heathrow and Dubai International, with 42,106 available seats across more than 100 flights between the two airports.

Figures show that Heathrow dominates the rest of the top ten for capacity. Services to New York J F Kennedy, Dublin, Los Angeles and Frankfurt are among the routes with the most seats on offer.

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Airlines

In terms of airlines, there will be more easyJet flights taking off from UK airports over the bank holiday weekend than any other carrier. In total, 2,168 easyJet flights will depart from runways in Great Britain and Northern Ireland. British Airways is just behind with 2,133 departures and Flybe is third with 1,887. Ryanair and Jet2 make up the top five.

You can hear from Willie Walsh, chief executive of British Airways owner IAG, and Flybe's chief commercial officer Vincent Hodder at World Routes 2017, taking place in Barcelona from 23-26 September 2017.

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