London Gatwick can’t, Heathrow can

Today London Heathrow Airport releases numbers for July 2014.
Heathrow CEO John Holland-Kaye said:

“The doubling of Air China’s routes to Beijing represents a vote of confidence for T2. It’s also recognition that despite other UK airports having spare capacity, only Heathrow can deliver daily, direct flights to emerging economies that will help Britain win in the global race for growth. Gatwick can’t, Heathrow can.”

Here is a list of achievements:
6.97 million passengers travelled through Heathrow in July 2014, an increase of 0.5% on July 2013 and Heathrow’s busiest ever month
27th of July also saw Heathrow’s record busiest day, with 239,928 passengers passing through the terminals

Seats per aircraft increased 0.7% to 204.9, whilst load factors decreased 0.5 percentage points to 82.3%. Passengers per aircraft rose 0.1% to 168.7

Within the emerging markets, Mexico was up 15.4%, China was up 10.4%, India was up 7.6%

Cargo was up 7.8% overall, increasing nearly 36% to Mexico, 34.6% to Russia and 11.5% to China

China’s performance is likely to strengthen further in forthcoming months, with Air China set to double its service to Beijing from October, following which there will be 51 departures from Heathrow per week to mainland China

Air China’s flights will operate from T2, demonstrating at an early stage the benefits of having STAR alliance operating under one roof – maximizing transfer traffic and therefore the economic viability of routes