By Ilaria Grasso Macola
The number of passengers travelling via Stansted soared 226 per cent in 2022, the airport reported today, in yet another encouraging sign that Britain’s airports are gradually recovering from the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Essex hub reported that 23.3 million passengers have passed through its gates over the past 12 months.
The numbers for December (1.8 million) were more than double the amount of people served in the same month in 2021 and only slightly lower than in 2019.
“To round the year off with another strong passenger performance in December is a great achievement, and testament to the strength of Stansted’s route network,” Gareth Powell, the airport’s managing director, said.
Powell added that he expected the next 12 months to be “even busier.”
According to aviation analyst Sally Gethin, Stansted’s numbers are really encouraging and show “how important smaller airports are to the British economy and travel as a whole.”
“The figures also show how much opportunity there is in this part of south-east England as a whole, despite the dominance of Heathrow and Gatwick,” she told City A.M.
Stansted is the latest London airport to report a significant jump in passenger numbers compared to last year.
Heathrow welcomed 61.6 million visitors throughout 2022, while the numbers for Gatwick, Luton and London City leapt to 32.8 million, 13.1 million and 3 million passengers respectively.
However, across the board, numbers remain significantly lower than before the pandemic.
At Stanstead, total passenger numbers for the year remain 17 per cent below pre-Covid-19 levels.
Heathrow’s boss John Holland-Kaye told City A.M. in late October that it would take the airport “many years” to go back to its pre-pandemic glory.
“It’s worth bearing in mind that 2019 was a time of a booming economy, peak globalisation and low interest rates,” Holland-Kaye said. “We’re not going to see those circumstances again for many years.”
Holland-Kaye’s words were echoed by Gethin, who told City A.M. full recovery is not expected until next year.
“Potential challenges involve higher fuel costs, geopolitical instability in Ukraine and no overfly of Russian airspace, increased cost of living, and continued skills shortages at airports and airlines,” she said.
“These impact Heathrow and Gatwick disproportionately as the most constrained airports in the UK,” she added.
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