Business and traffic commentary July 2018

07.00 10th August 2018

Heathrow has its busiest day ever as tourists head to the UK - supercharging the country's economy

§ 29 July was the busiest day in Heathrow's history, as the airport welcomed nearly 262,000 passengers in 24 hours. Overall, July reached unprecedented peaks, with over a quarter of a million passengers travelling through the airport on 19 different days in the month

§ Over 7.8 million passengers travelled through the UK's only hub airport on the 21stconsecutive record month, with figures up by 3.7%

§ The airport's already popular North American routes saw significant growth of 8.1%, a total of 1.8 million passengers driven by larger, fuller aircraft. Figures reiterate the need to extend the use of self-service e-gates to nations such as the United States and Canada

§ Passenger numbers for Asia-Pacific climbed by 4.2% following new services from Hainan Airlines, Tianjin Airlines and Beijing Capital Airlines, connecting the UK to Changsha and Xi'an and Qingdao. In the past two years Heathrow has welcomed 9 new routes to Chinese destinations

§ 140,000 metric tonnes of cargo travelled through Heathrow in July, with the emerging markets - China, Turkey and Brazil - seeing the fastest cargo growth across the month

§ In July, Heathrow completed 65 visits to all longlisted sites bidding to help deliver the expanded airport and completed the 1st stage of its search for innovation partners. Receiving over 100 Expressions of Interest, this initiative sets out to encourage fresh thinking around how Heathrow delivers the expanded airport.

§ Heathrow announced the arrival of two new retail spaces - a Louis Vuitton pop-up store in Terminal 4 and a Spuntino in Terminal 3, both are set to open in Winter 2018

Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye said:

"It's brilliant to see even more international visitors coming to the UK and supercharging the country's economy this summer. However, too often their first impression of the UK is a long queue for immigration. The Home Office should let visitors from low risk countries, such as the US, use the same e-gates as EU visitors to give them a warm welcome to Britain."