London Heathrow starts year with yet another record
February 11, 2025
London Heathrow has stormed into 2025 with yet another record-breaking month under its belt, with January passenger numbers reaching over 6.3 million (up 5% from January 2024).
“2025 has started how we mean to go on – serving record breaking passenger numbers and delivering trade and investment across the whole of the UK,” explained Heathrow CEO Thomas Woldbye. “To ensure we continue on this upwards trajectory, the Government has signalled their support for an expanded Heathrow. We’ll now work with Ministers to progress the necessary policy changes required to advance our growth plans”. With the airport now working to finalise its plans with its stakeholders, it intends to formally submit a proposal to the government by the summer.
Last month, Chancellor Rachel Reeves confirmed the government’s support for a long-debated third runway at Heathrow, inviting proposals to be subsequently taken through “a full assessment through the Airport National Policy Statement”. With the proposed runway to be delivered “in line with [the UK government’s] legal, environmental and climate objectives,” a spokesperson for the airport confirmed they were “looking at potential options to deliver a third runway at Heathrow in line with strict tests on carbon, noise and air quality”.
January also marked the eleventh consecutive month Heathrow averaged over 200,000 passengers a day, with the airport attributing transatlantic travel as a “key contributor of this growth”. Over 1.2 million passengers travelled between the UK and US in January, up 8% year-on-year, and following Heathrow’s London-New York JFK route’s status as the UK’s busiest international route for 2024.
Cirium data indicates that 2024 was Heathrow’s busiest year on record, with over 480,000 scheduled departures representing a 4.4% increase year-on-year. Alongside surpassing its annual pre-pandemic (2019) total passengers, Heathrow also closed out its business summer season on record last October, recording a record-high day for passenger arrivals (140,500) on 2 September.
