Manchester Airport has busiest start to year since covid lockdowns

Manchester Airport has had its busiest start to the year since the start of the coronavirus lockdowns, new figures reveal. Around 1.6m people travelled through the airport in January, more than double the 750,000 from 2022, the airport said.

In January 2020 almost 1.8m passengers used the airport, although that figure was affected by the collapse of Thomas Cook. The UK shut its borders in March 2020, after which passengers numbers plunged.

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Manchester Airport manging director Chris Woodroofe said: "We are delighted to have made such a strong start to 2023, with January's statistics showing passenger numbers continuing to recover well and operational performance steadily improving."

After covid restrictions eased staff shortages meant the airport struggled to cope with a rapid increase in flights. Long queues were regularly reported at security and passport control, while there were also problems at baggage claims.

But the airport said last month 92.4% of passengers waited for 10 minutes or less to pass through security checks.

Last month the airport also announced a £440 million project to complete the new Terminal 2 building. The investment marks the final phase of the airport's £1.3bn transformation programme first unveiled in 2015 - and sounds the death knell for Terminal 1 after more than 60 years of flights and memories.

Airport bosses and civic leaders in Greater Manchester said the new terminal would create thousands of jobs and was expected to unlock billions of pounds of economic value for the region over the next decade and beyond.

Mr Woodroffe added: "The announcement of the second phase of our transformation programme