Business and traffic commentary May 2025

Heathrow delivers strong and improved service as it gears up for summer travellers

· Heathrow welcomed over 7.2 million passengers last month, with a strong late bank holiday making May 2025 another record breaker as the airport's busiest ever May.

· More people than ever before continue to travel through the UK's hub airport - in the 12 months to the end of May, the airport served 84m passengers.

· In record time, New York JFK became the first Heathrow route to reach over a million passengers in 2025 with Dubai following closely in second place, while the Mediterranean quintet of Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain, and Cyprus saw double-digit growth on last year.

· Heathrow had a record day on 22nd May for Bilbao routes due to the Europa League final between Man Utd and Tottenham the previous day. 16 flights operated across the two days, which is double the norm.

· Colleagues have already successfully served record numbers during recent peak periods and passengers can travel with confidence. The airport is ready for another strong summer, over 95% of passengers rated their experience as either good or excellent and 99% of security queues times were below 5 minutes.

· Heathrow is proud to welcome record-breaking growth - a sign of strong demand that benefits the UK, airlines, and passengers alike. But as these record numbers become the norm, it's time to start an honest conversation about the challenges this presents for an already space-constrained yet highly efficient hub. Heathrow continues to deliver excellent service, but to sustain this performance and meet future demand, expanding capacity will be essential.

Heathrow CEO, Thomas Woldbye, said: "Over 95% of our passengers rated their experience with us as good or excellent - that's testament to why more people are choosing to travel through Heathrow. Over the past year, we've supported 84 million journeys, and this summer we're ready to welcome even more. The fact remains that Heathrow is at capacity, yet even in a spaced-constrained environment we've improved on-time performance and delivered strong security results by working closely with airlines and other partners. With hundreds of millions of pounds invested in infrastructure like new security lanes and baggage systems, we'll continue enhancing the Heathrow experience and strengthening the UK's global connections."