The number of passengers travelling through Jersey Airport in 2017 hit their highest level since the year 2000 – despite a big drop in inter-island travel.
By the end of December, a total of 1,616,044 commercial air passengers had travelled through the airport, an increase of 25,253 passengers compared to 2016 or a 1.6% increase.
The last time this figure was achieved was in year 2000, when 1,635,584 air passengers were recorded.
Inter-island passenger numbers ended the year down 13,000 passengers on the previous year, a 13% drop.
Marketing Director for Ports of Jersey, Myra Shacklady, said: “For the past four years
our air passenger numbers have been steadily growing and it’s a great boost for the island to start the New Year on a positive note. In fact, since 2013 we have increased air passenger numbers by over 186,000.”
“For an island the size of Jersey with its resident population of 100,000 we believe we have an enviable network of air services available to us and Ports of Jersey will continue to explore new opportunities while maintaining the excellent relationships we already have with our existing carriers.”
The news comes just days after easyJet announced a new Jersey to Edinburgh summer service, and weeks after Business Eye CI was first to report a rise in tourism numbers for the first nine months of 2017.
The majority of UK regions saw increases in passenger numbers with the London market up 2%, north-west up 5%, north-east up 3%, south up 3%, midlands up 7% and Scotland up 23%.
