Birmingham Airport has started the year on a high, recording a healthy 9% passenger growth rate year-on-year for January 2016 and the busiest January on record.

Last month the Midlands airport handled a total of 666,681 passengers, 55,000 more than the same month the previous year.

Demand for seats has increased on both long and short-haul routes, with the most significant growth again recorded on long-haul services which were up by over 18% compared to the same month last year. 

Paul Kehoe, Chief Executive Officer at Birmingham Airport, said: “This is an excellent start to the year and it means we are now celebrating our eleventh consecutive month of record breaking passenger figures.

“2015 was a good year here at Birmingham Airport, overall we handled 10.2 million passengers – the most we’ve ever recorded in our 75 year history.

“We expect the coming 12 months to be successful as we welcome more airlines to the flourishing Midlands region. This Easter alone will see us introduce Qatar, CSA, Iberia and Blue Air to Birmingham as well as the introduction by Emirates of its A380 aircraft.”

Scheduled traffic in January accounted for almost 90% of the total with charter passengers making up the remaining 10%.

Scheduled traffic overall grew by 9.7% , with one hundred percent growth achieved on new scheduled routes to Madrid, Warsaw, Poznan, Palma de Mallorca and New York JFK. 

There was also significant year-on-year passenger growth to Rome (+492%), Barcelona (+189%) and Larnaca (+47%). 

Charter traffic experienced 3.9% growth and significant increases on services to Fuerteventura (+150%), Gran Canaria (+126.8%) and Cancun (+121.8%).