New destinations and additional aircraft helped boost passenger numbers at Bristol Airport by 7.8% last month, new figures show.
More than 656,000 passengers used the airport in May following similar growth in April. Charter holiday traffic was particularly strong, profiting from two bank holidays and a bumper week during the half term school break.
As a result of the recent passenger growth, the airport is to make significant improvements to its security search and arrivals areas. Further details of these are to be announced soon. Meanwhile, work on its eastern terminal extension is nearing completion. 
The ‘big two’ UK tour operators Thomas Cook and TUI – which includes Thomson and First Choice – are boosting their flight and holiday programmes from Bristol this year.
Thomson Airways added a third aircraft to its Bristol-based fleet in May, opening up new destinations such as Dubrovnik, Pula and Santorini, while Thomas Cook is operating two Airbus A321s to 20 destinations from the airport throughout the summer season.
Numbers also increased on scheduled flights to both domestic and international destinations. New easyJet services to Bilbao, Isle of Man, Porto, Gibraltar and Lanzarote started in April, followed by flights to Catania and Zante in May. Hungarian airline Wizz Air will enter the South West market for the first time with twice-weekly flights to Katowice in Poland later this month.
Bristol Airport chief executive Robert Sinclair said: “The high levels of growth experienced already this summer highlight the importance of the significant investment we are making to enhance passenger facilities. Completion of the eastern terminal extension will be followed by another major project to improve key aspects of the airport experience, and we expect to announce details of this exciting development soon.
“In the meantime, we do ask passengers to make sure they leave sufficient time to complete essential processes such as security search when travelling from Bristol Airport throughout what will continue to be a busy summer of travel.”
