The three airports served 3.6 million passengers in January, with more than 1.6 million of these passing through the northern hub.
 
The figure is more than double the 750,000 who travelled through Manchester in January 2022, when the Group served just 37% of pre-pandemic traffic.

Manchester airport claims to have put last summer’s issues behind it, when it was dogged by long security queues, with passengers missing flights and waiting hours for luggage.

Manchester Airports Group said: “Operational performance has continued to be much-improved on last summer, with 92.4% of passengers waiting for 10 minutes or less to pass through security checks last month.”

Chris Woodroofe, Manchester airport managing director, added: “We are delighted to have made such a strong start to 2023, with January’s statistics showing passenger numbers continuing to recover well and operational performance steadily improving.
 
“We are now fully focused on continuing to improve the passenger experience ahead of what promises to be another busy summer.”