Airline passenger experience in the UK - statistics & facts
The United Kingdom (UK) plays an important role in the European aviation industry, hosting one of the major European aviation hubs, Heathrow Airport. In the last three decades, between 1992 and 2019, the number of passengers arriving and departing at airport terminals in the UK almost tripled, amounting to over 296 million people being transported by air in the UK in 2019. However, disruption and travel restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic marked air passengers' experiences in the UK in the following two years. As the coronavirus pandemic spread in 2020, only 73.7 million passengers arrived and departed from UK airports, which was a dramatic decrease compared to the previous year. The passenger traffic in British airports even dropped more in 2021 before showing signs of a first recovery in 2022. That year, airports in the UK saw a return to travel with no or a few of the coronavirus pandemic travel restrictions, but some disruption to travel continued, with staff shortages and several strikes affecting passenger experiences.
