London Heathrow Airport saw a 7.5% drop in passenger traffic last month compared to the same period in 2024. The decline was mainly due to a 10-hour suspension of flights on 21 March, caused by a power outage triggered by a nearby fire.
The airport handled 6.2 million passengers in March 2025, down from 6.7 million in March 2024. In addition to the outage, Heathrow said the timing of Easter and Ramadan this year also affected passenger numbers. Easter falls in April in 2025, while Ramadan influenced travel demand in several markets.
Despite the dip in monthly traffic, Heathrow stated it remains “on track” to set a new annual passenger record in 2025. The current record stands at 83.9 million passengers, achieved in 2024.
The airport highlighted several new routes launched this year. These include long-haul services introduced by Virgin Atlantic, British Airways, and Air Canada. It also added short-haul flights to Rimini, Italy, and Tbilisi, Georgia.
All global regions saw a decline in passenger traffic from Heathrow in March, except Latin America. Traffic to and from Latin America rose by 0.7% year-on-year.
Heathrow’s total passenger volume for the first quarter of 2025 reached 18.25 million, a 1.5% decrease from the same period last year. However, when looking at the rolling 12-month period from April 2024 to March 2025, traffic increased by 3.5% to 83.6 million passengers.
Meanwhile, Airports Council International (ACI) World ranked Heathrow as the fifth busiest airport in the world for 2024. This was a drop of one place compared to 2023. The four airports that handled more passengers were Atlanta, Dubai, Dallas Fort Worth, and Tokyo Haneda. Istanbul was the only other European hub to appear in the global top 10, ranked seventh.
In terms of international traffic alone, Heathrow was the world’s second busiest airport in 2024. It served 79.2 million international passengers, behind only Dubai, which saw 92.3 million.
Four other European airports made the top 10 list for international traffic in 2024. Amsterdam Schiphol ranked fourth with 66.8 million, Paris Charles de Gaulle came fifth with 64.5 million, Istanbul was seventh with 63 million, and Frankfurt ranked eighth with 56.2 million.
ACI World reported that global airline traffic reached 9.5 billion passengers in 2024. This marked a 9% rise from 2023 and a 3.8% increase compared to the pre-pandemic level in 2019.
Looking ahead, ACI expects global air travel to grow by another 4.8% in 2025, potentially reaching 9.9 billion passengers this year.
However, the group warned that growth may slow. “While passenger demand remains strong, the pace of expansion is expected to slow as markets shift from recovery-driven surges to structural, long-term growth patterns,” ACI World said.
It added that economic uncertainty, geopolitical tensions, and capacity constraints could play a bigger role in shaping the future of the aviation industry.
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