The UK’s Birmingham Airport has started the year on a high recording a healthy nine percent 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 percent compared to the same month last year and why the airport’s Aviation Development Director, William Pearson and Head of Aviation Development, Tom Screen are in San Juan attending Routes Americas seeking enhanced Americas connectivity.

“This is an excellent start to the year and it means we are now celebrating our eleventh consecutive month of record breaking passenger figures,” Pearson told Routesonline after arriving in the Caribbean this week. “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 Airways, Czech Airlines, Iberia and Blue Air to Birmingham as well as the introduction by Emirates Airline of its A380 aircraft,” he added.

The performance data shows that scheduled traffic in January accounted for almost 90 percent of the total with charter passengers making up the remaining ten percent.

Scheduled traffic overall grew by 9.7 percent, 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 percent), Barcelona (+189 percent) and Larnaca (+47 percent).

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