44BI Heathrow 51

Heathrow breaks 12-month record with 81m passengers choosing the UK's hub airport

§ More people than ever before are choosing to travel through Heathrow. The UK's hub airport served a record-breaking 81.5m passengers in the 12 months to May

§ The milestone was reached as airport teams welcomed 7.2m passengers last month, the first time May traffic has ever exceeded 7m. This summer is expected to see more records broken with an estimated 30m passengers

§ Colleagues have already successfully served record numbers during recent peak periods and passengers can travel with confidence. Among the latest additions in the terminals is the UK's first branch of Jones the Grocer, which opened this week in Terminal 2, serving up freshly-made meals and artisanal produce

§ Terminal 2 - The Queen's Terminal celebrates 10 years of operations this summer. Since opening in 2014 it has seen 148m passengers traveling to more than 30 different countries on over a million flights

§ New research published for the anniversary showed many passengers enjoy a little indulgence at the start of a trip, including cake for breakfast, an impulse gift or a morning tipple. In May alone, sweet-toothed passengers bought 40,000 Toblerones (approx. one every minute), enough to stretch the length of the airport's northern runway

§ While summer is on the horizon, it's not too early to think about winter escapes. British Airways has just announced a new Heathrow route to Tromsø in Norway for Aurora-seekers and Arctic adventurers, as SAS confirms its own new addition to Sälen in Sweden

Heathrow CEO Thomas Woldbye said:

"We have a winning team at Heathrow which has proven that we have put Covid firmly behind us. Thanks to their extraordinary efforts we are now giving record numbers of people the chance to connect smoothly with the world. Supporting 81m journeys doesn't just help families to make wonderful holiday memories, importantly it is about the vital trade and business links a hub like Heathrow creates for the UK's economy."