Early Easter and new routes deliver bumper March for John Lennon Airport

Liverpool John Lennon Airport (LJLA) saw its passenger numbers continue to grow in March, driving its quarterly figures past the 1m mark.

Last month the airport served more than 380k passengers, which is 18% more than in March 2015 and the highest figure for that month since 2011.

On a quarterly basis, 170k more people travelled through LJLA than in Q1 2015, representing year-on-year passenger growth of 20%.

Bosses have attributed the increase to the earlier Easter Bank Holiday weekend, ramped up summer schedule departures and new airlines operating from Liverpool.

New services kicking off at LJLA in March included Spanish carrier Vueling’s new route to Barcelona and Hungarian airline Wizz Air’s flights to Budapest and Katowice. Elsewhere, Czech Airlines reintroduced its Prague service.

LJLA’s head of PR, Robin Tudor, said: “This has been a tremendous first quarter for the Airport and the airlines that now operate from here.

“In the week that we have the Grand National Festival and an expected 15% increase of visitors on many routes, these latest growth figures are set to continue and are expected to contribute towards a further upsurge in business at the Airport in 2016.”

March represented the airport’s 14th consecutive month of passenger growth.