Airport passenger numbers a quarter of pre-pandemic levels
AIRPORT passenger numbers have reached their highest level since the start of the pandemic.
However, they are still just a quarter of pre-pandemic levels, according to the latest figures.
Airlines have started to offer more routes, but often there are only one or two services a day, when previously there were up to six daily rotations on busy routes.
Figures for July were recently released, showing how the partial relaxation of restrictions for vaccinated people dramatically boosted passenger numbers and saw Gatwick Airport return to being Guernsey’s most popular route for the first time since the start of the pandemic.
More than 26,000 people passed through Guernsey Airport last month, as vaccinated common travel area adults were finally able to come into the island without needing to self-isolate.
During the earlier parts of this year only a few thousand people were travelling each month, but this had slowly started to rise as summer neared, with about 8,000 in June. But the border change led to a sharp rise in travellers.
More than 7,600 people travelled between Guernsey and Gatwick, making it the busiest route.
This was followed by Southampton, with more than 6,700, and then Manchester with nearly 2,500.
On Channel Island routes, Alderney is still more popular than Jersey, with 3,700 compared with 1,300. British Airways launched new routes to London City and Edinburgh last month, with twice weekly rotations. Nearly 500 passengers used the London City service during the first month.
No separate figures were published for Edinburgh.
While the latest figures are a big rise compared with the last 18 months, it is still well below pre-pandemic levels. In July 2019 more than 87,000 journeys were made through Guernsey Airport.
Historically, Gatwick has been Guernsey’s favoured route, with it topping the 2019 list with more than 300,000 passenger movements – three times the next most popular.
But during the pandemic air services between Guernsey and the UK have been focused on Southampton Airport, which was serving largely domestic, rather than international, routes.
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