With today marking the start of the Easter holidays and the strike by security staff at Heathrow Terminal 5, Cirium have revealed the current state of the aviation industry here in the UK.
During the Easter school holidays (31 March – 16 April), 44,074 flights are scheduled to depart UK airports – equating to nearly 7.8 million seats. 14 April is scheduled to be the busiest day across the holiday period, with 2,776 flights departing UK airports.
The most popular international destinations for UK departures will be Dublin, followed by Amsterdam, Malaga, Palma and Alicante and easyJet is projected to be the busiest airline during the holidays, with over 9,000 departures from the UK, followed by British Airways, Ryanair Loganair, and Jet2. Heathrow Airport will see the largest number of departures, 10,696, followed by Gatwick, Stansted, Manchester and Edinburgh.
During the Easter weekend 2023 (7 – 10 April), 10,286 flights are scheduled to depart UK airports – equating to over 1.8 million seats. Easter departures from UK airports remain 12% down compared to the Easter weekend in 2019 when there were 11,743 departing flights.
However, departures are up 12% compared to Easter 2022, and 655% up compared to 2021, showing the continued recovery of the industry.
