Despite losing Lufthansa in February Liverpool John Lennon Airport sees a 22% rise in passenger numbers for the first half of 2024 and is on track to smash 5m for the year. Tony McDonough reports
Liverpool John Lennon Airport (LJLA) handled 2.36m passengers in the first half of 2024 – around 22% higher than last year.
In April, May and June LJLA handled more than 1.4m passengers. This compares to 1.15m during the same period in 2023. In the first three months of 2024 the airport handled 923,500 passengers.
And since the half year point at the end of June the airport has handled another 425,000 passengers, taking the total for the year to date to more than 2.5m.
It means LJLA is well on track to smash through the 5m passengers barrier in 2024 for the first time in several years. Jet2’s launch in the spring has offset the impact of the suspension of the Lufthansa Frankfurt route in February.
The German carrier began operating from LJLA in May 2022 to great fanfare. Initially, it offered two return flights four days a week. By December 2022 it was so pleased with the performance of the route it raised the frequency to six days a week.
But just before Christmas 2023 Lufthansa delivered an unexpected blow when it announced it was suspending the route from February 2024. In June Lufthansa told LBN it had no plans to resume flights this year but said this was possible in 2025.
March this year saw the first ever take-off for Jet2.com and Jet2holidays out of Liverpool with more than 20 routes for the summer season and a further eight for the winter season which begins in October.
Shortly after its LJLA launch the Leeds-based airline said it was so pleased with forward bookings that it had decided to expand routes and capacity out of Liverpool for summer 2025. In May it added a further three routes for its winter 2025/26 programme.
Long-term LJLA carriers easyJet and Ryanair have also been beefing up their presence at the airport. In June, easyJet announced six new routes including Malta, Prague, Marrakech, Berlin and Fuerteventura as well as an all-year-round route to Derry.
In April Ryanair said it was adding three new routes to its summer 2024 schedule out of LJLA taking the total to 32 in an investment worth £80m.
The three new routes are to Corfu, Lanzarote and Paphos. To support this 11% Liverpool traffic growth, Ryanair will base 1 new B737 aircraft for the summer bringing its total Liverpool fleet to five aircraft and creating more than 30 pilot and cabin crew jobs.
Robin Tudor, head of PR and communications for LJLA, told LBN: “Increased levels of business on existing and new services with five additional aircraft now based here this year, has seen passenger figures for the first six months of 2023 running at 22% up on last year.
“And, importantly in May and June we saw passenger numbers exceed pre-COVID levels for the first time as the airport continues its post covid recovery.”