London’s Stansted Airport welcomed one million more passengers in the first three months of 2015 compared with the same period last year. The numbers were buoyed by a particularly strong March performance when passenger traffic was up 24 per cent year-on-year to 1.67 million travellers.

Stansted is among the fastest growing airports in the UK over the past year with ten consecutive months of double digit growth. Annual passenger numbers for the last year (12 months to March 2015) are up 16.3 per cent compared with the previous 12 month period to 20,923,257.

“The first three months of 2015 have been an extremely busy and exciting time for Stansted as the airport welcomed nearly one million more passengers during the period than in 2014. The total number of passengers using the airport in the last 12 months grew by over 16% to leave us tantalisingly close to the 21 million passengers a year milestone,” said Andrew Harrison, managing director, Stansted Airport.

Growth in domestic traffic has been particularly strong with passenger numbers up 40 per cent over last year due to new Scottish flights from Ryanair plus the arrival of Flybe to serve Newcastle and Isle of Man with a Newquay service joining later this year.

“In March, passenger numbers were up by more than 24 per cent over the same month last year. This excellent performance has seen Stansted experience double digit growth for ten consecutive months, a fantastic achievement and testament to the strength of our airline partners who have added more routes, increased frequencies to key destinations and seen more people on each flight,” added Harrison.