London Heathrow completes 2023 with the busiest December on record
London Heathrow Airport ended 2023 by recording its busiest December yet. More than 6.6 million passengers passed through the British hub, up 12.7 percent from the same month in 2022.
With an average of about 216,000 daily passengers last month, the busiest day during the holiday period was Friday, December 22, when almost 250,000 passengers used the airport to meet up with family for the holidays. According to these figures, Heathrow's total passenger numbers in 2023 were 79.1 million, up 29 percent from 2022, according to Business Travel News Europe.
Transatlantic travel was a key driver for December and the full year, with New York named Heathrow's most popular destination in 2023, accounting for over three million passengers.
More than 24 routes from Heathrow carried more than one million passengers in 2023, with Dubai being the second most popular destination, followed by Qatar, Dublin, Los Angeles, Madrid, Amsterdam and Frankfurt.
Passenger numbers in North America reached 19.9 million in 2023, up 29.6% from 2022, with growth rates eclipsed only by Asia Pacific, where passenger numbers rose 76.2% to 9.7 million following the region's wider opening up.
In 2023, the number of passengers within the UK grew by 26.4% compared to 2022 to 4.2 million, in the EU by 22.8% to 26.2 million, and in non-EU Europe by 19.8% to 5.3 million.