London Stansted Airport records 'busiest ever winter season'

London Stansted Airport reported (15-Apr-2026) it handled 2.3 million passengers in Mar-2026, a decline of 1.5% year-on-year and the second busiest March on record. The airport handled 10.6 million passengers during the winter period between Nov-2025 and Mar-2026, the airport's "busiest ever winter season". The most popular countries for passengers across winter 2025/26 were Spain, Italy and Germany, with the busiest individual destinations being Dublin, Istanbul and Edinburgh. The airport reported conflict in the Middle East "did impact some services" in Mar-2026, including Emirates' twice daily service to Dubai. Airport operations director Nick Millar stated: "The summer schedule is now underway, and we have already welcomed Turkish Airlines to the airport and seen the launch of new services to Paris and Malmo with easyJet and Ryanair, respectively, with more new routes to come later in the season. In addition, we have just successfully delivered a very busy Easter getaway for hundreds of thousands of passengers and we see this strong demand continuing in the months ahead as we ramp up our preparations for the peak summer getaway". [more - original PR - London Stansted Airport] [more - original PR - Manchester Airports Group]