Passengers at Liverpool Airport will jet off to 52 destinations over the festive period making it the busiest Christmas for the airport since 2019. Tony McDonough reports
Liverpool John Lennon Airport (LJLA) expects to handle 120,000 passengers over the Christmas and New Year period – its busiest since 2019.
Numbers took a huge dip during the two years of the pandemic. Christmas 2019 saw around 150,000 passengers pass through LJLA and this year’s figure is expected to be around 80% of that.
With most schools having finished for Christmas by Thursday, lots of families from across the region are expected to head off on flights over the holiday period to a host of destinations direct from Liverpool.
Flights will be operating to 52 destinations over the festive period with easyJet, Ryanair, Wizz Air and Loganair, plus with Lufthansa and Play airlines for the first time, who both started operating from Liverpool this year.
Popular destinations include Dublin, Belfast, Geneva, Alicante, Isle of Man, Malaga, Tenerife, Cork, Lanzarote, Amsterdam, Knock and Faro.
To avoid disappointment at the security search point and to help keep security queues to a minimum, passengers are being asked to travel with their presents unwrapped if they are to be carried in hand luggage.
Robin Tudor, head of PR for LJLA, said: “This Christmas and New Year period is expected to be our busiest since pre-COVID. It will be great once again at this time of year to see thousands of passengers from across the region taking advantage of the convenience of flying hassle-free from Liverpool.
“We pride ourselves for being faster, easier and friendlier. However, we would like to remind all passengers to always allow plenty of time when traveling to the airport, come prepared and think carefully about what they are carrying in their hand luggage.”
LJLA has seen a trio of positive announcements during December. First easyJet announced a new route and an extra aircraft and this was followed by Ryanair unveiling three new destinations for summer 2023.
Then, in mid-December, German carrier Lufthansa announced it was increasing the frequency of its flights between Liverpool and Frankfurt from May 2023.