{"id":31425,"date":"2026-01-12T21:22:45","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T02:22:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/2026\/01\/12\/heathrow-airport-sees-record-annual-passenger-numbers\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T21:22:45","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T02:22:45","slug":"heathrow-airport-sees-record-annual-passenger-numbers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/2026\/01\/12\/heathrow-airport-sees-record-annual-passenger-numbers\/","title":{"rendered":"Heathrow airport sees record annual passenger numbers"},"content":{"rendered":"<section class=\"medium-10 medium-offset-1 columns article-body\" itemprop=\"articleBody\" data-epic-field=\"content\">\n<p>Heathrow Airport said today it welcomed more than 84 million travellers last year, a record high amount for the London hub which is set to undergo a major expansion.<\/p>\n<p>The annual update comes as Heathrow &#8211; Europe&#8217;s busiest airport by passenger numbers in 2024 &#8211; starts work on a new runway to &#8220;unlock even more of that connectivity, trade and economic growth for the UK&#8221;, the airport&#8217;s chief executive Thomas Woldbye said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>Istanbul airport last week disclosed that it welcomed 84.4 million passengers in 2025, just below Heathrow&#8217;s figure of 84.5 million.<\/p>\n<p>Heathrow said almost 7.2 million passengers travelled through the hub last month, its highest number on record for the month of December.<\/p>\n<p>The airport in August unveiled a \u00a349 billion expansion plan, including the cost of building a long-awaited third runway, approved by the UK government after years of legal wrangling.<\/p>\n<p>The works will increase capacity to up to 150 million passengers per year, according to Heathrow.<\/p>\n<p>It would be a rare expansion in Europe, where countries are split between efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the needs of a strategic sector that has seen demand soar since the Covid-era lockdowns.<\/p>\n<p>The runway would cost \u00a321 billion, with flights expected to take off within a decade, while the rest of the privately-funded investment will go toward expanding and modernising the airport.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Heathrow Airport said today it welcomed more than 84 million travellers last year, a record high amount for the London hub which is set to undergo a major expansion. The annual update comes as Heathrow &#8211; Europe&#8217;s busiest airport by passenger numbers in 2024 &#8211; starts work on a new runway to &#8220;unlock even more [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31426,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-news","entry","has-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sharewatch.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}