Birmingham Airport to handle more passengers and flights in 2024

More holiday flights will operate from the regional airport with many new destinations being added by European airlines over the course of the year.

In 2023 the airport handled 11.5 million customers and the new flights will help make progress towards the target of hitting 18 million by 2033.

Passenger numbers have been steadily recovering since the Covid-19 pandemic and alongside the investment by airlines the airport itself is in the midst of a major upgrading of facilities.

Over the next decade capital investment will total £300m.

Its £50 million project to build a state-of-the-art new security screening hall is due to be completed this summer.

Among the airlines seeing the potential of Birmingham is Turkish Airlines, which will offer 18 flights a week to Istanbul from this summer.

It currently serves the route twice a day but from June will increase frequency to three times a day on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays while continuing its twice daily services on other days of the week.

Eren Ozturk, sales manager from Turkish Airlines, said: “Customer demand from BHX to Istanbul is strong and growing stronger, so we’re pleased to be able to meet this demand with additional flights.”

Low-cost carrier Pegasus Airlines saw its first service take off between Birmingham Airport and Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen International Airport last months and is now be flying on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.

EasyJet is opening its new three-aircraft operation from Birmingham Airport from March 18. Basing the aircraft there will enable the airline to further expand its Birmingham network with 16 new routes in addition to 13 domestic and international services the airline already operates from Birmingham.

The airline’s first base opening in the UK in over a decade will create around 100 direct jobs for pilots and crew and more than 1,200 more indirect jobs.

Jet2.com based a 14th aircraft at the airport last year and has promised a 15th next summer. Jet2holidays has already announced two new destinations in Greece for next summer from the airport. Continued strong demand for holidays to Greece prompted the UK’s largest tour operator to add the island of Symi and Athens Coast to its programme.

In total, Jet2.com will operate more than 50 weekly services during peak periods to Greece from Birmingham. It will also operate scheduled flights and holidays from Birmingham Airport to Morocco for the first time in 2024.

The UK’s largest tour operator and third largest airline will operate year-round from Birmingham to two destinations in Morocco – Agadir and Marrakech.

Steve Heapy, chief executive of Jet2.com and Jet2holidays said: “We are thrilled to be giving customers and independent travel agents even more choice from Birmingham Airport thanks to the launch of Morocco as a brand-new destination."

Ryanair is also expected to operate more flights from Birmingham Airport. The Ireland-based budget airline now has six of its jets based at the airport – an investment of more than £530 million. A seventh is being added this summer.

Its winter 2023-2024 schedule for Birmingham totals 34 routes, including four new routes to Budapest, Girona, Seville, and Valencia as well as increased frequencies on another 11 routes, including Krakow, Malta, and Turin.

Ryanair's investment at Birmingham is supporting more than 2,200 local jobs including 180 highly-paid aviation roles. Three of its aircraft based there will be Boeing 737 Gamechangers, which are highly sought by airports throughout Europe as they reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 16 per cent and noise emissions by 40 per cent as well as carrying four per cent more passengers.

The new routes will contribute to the airline's Birmingham traffic growing to 2.7 million passengers a year.

Emirates is recruiting cabin staff to be based at the airport from where it flies to 82 destinations from Birmingham. They include Nigeria, Ethiopia, India, New Zealand, Ghana, Jordan and Europe.

A recruitment event is being held at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Birmingham city centre on Friday, January 12 from 9am.

The airport is more than halfway through £10m of aircraft stand upgrades to make its operation more efficient and reliable for customers. The project is making all the stands on the airport’s South Terminal capable of accommodating Airbus 321 and Boeing 737 aircraft, which many airlines use. It is due to be complete in the summer.

The airport saw more than 335,000 passengers travel through it between December 22 and January 2 – up 19 per cent up on the same period in 2022-2023. Passenger numbers travelling through the airport improved in November when it handled 764,875 – 17 per cent up on November 2022. In October 1,106,000 passengers travelled through the Midlands transport hub with volumes exceeding 2019 levels for the first time. In 2019-2020, the airport served more than 12m before Covid struck

In the financial year ending March 31, the airport expects to have served around 12m customers, on or near level with pre-pandemic volumes, as it prepares for more than 13m in 2024-2025.

Nick Barton, the airport chief executive of BHX, said: “In 2024 we look forward to unveiling our £50m new security hall, which will vastly improve the experience for customers, switching on our new customer website, and generating 20 per cent of our electricity needs from a 12,000-panel solar array currently under construction.”