Heathrow reaches record 80m milestone in 2018
A record 80 million passengers travelled through the Heathrow Airport in 2018, up 2.7% on last year - with growth boosted by the use of larger and fuller aircraft - becoming one of only seven airports in the world to achieve this milestone.
Over 1.6m metric tonnes of cargo travelled through the airport by value throughout the year. This is the equivalent of 761 London Eyes, 88 Shard buildings or 32 QE2s. North American cargo made up over 600,000 metric tonnes, Asia Pacific was second highest with more than 510,000 metric tonnes.
Heathrow continued to raise the bar on customer satisfaction scores being named ‘Best Airport in Western Europe’ for the fourth year running and ‘Best Airport for Shopping’ for the ninth year in the most recent Skytrax World Airport Awards. Terminal 2 beat its international counterparts to win ‘World’s Best Airport Terminal’, with Terminal 5 coming in fourth.
Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye said: “2018 has been an exceptional year for Heathrow, with record passenger numbers and service levels."
In 2018, Heathrow unveiled the airport’s plans for carbon neutral growth, outlining action on four key areas to reduce and offset carbon emissions from the growth in flights that would be created by an additional runway – including through investments in peatland restoration and free landing fees for the first electric flight.
December 2018
6.5 million people travelled through Heathrow in December, as passengers made their way home for the holidays or sought winter sun. Traffic increased by 2.5%, making December the 26th consecutive record month.
The regions that saw the most passenger growth were Africa and Latin America, up 9.3% and 7.0% respectively compared to last year.
132,000 metric tonnes of cargo travelled through the airport last month. The standout markets for cargo growth were Brazil, China and Turkey.