Stansted Airport, one of London’s most popular smaller airports recently marked the 25’th anniversary of their£400 million terminal. It was during this occasion that outgoing managing Director; Andrew Harrison made known of the milestones achieved by London’s third major airport.
The terminal has been expanded twice in the last 25 years, first for £50 million in 2008, then £80 million following the takeover of the Essex airport by Manchester Airports Group in 2013.
Stansted has added over 5 million passengers in the last three years making them one of the UK’s fastest growing airports. With EasyJet and Ryanair being their two major airlines, as well as being the most popular, Stansted continues to show record growth.
Compared to 1991 when the airport had 50 routes and about 1.1 million passengers, today they have over 170 destinations and service 23 million passengers per year.
An impressed Andrew Harrison added, "The modern Stansted we see today has made an immense contribution in helping transform the aviation landscape in the UK and Europe through access to affordable and convenient air travel.”
According to him, the airport has transported more than 350 million passengers, since their first flight to Glasgow so many years ago.
With this continued growth and their third projected upgrade, Stansted is more than ample competition for Heathrow as one of the UK’s most popular airports. The airport is most popular with students at Essex as well as local residents who’d rather not drive to Heathrow in order to go on holiday, in particular those located in Southwest England.
With its increased popularity and growth, Stansted is looking ahead to see what they can do to continue to meet the demand and continue to keep pace with their continued growth. We definitely don’t want a case similar to that of Heathrow with the drama of the third runway.
