Heathrow Airport sees busiest April ever thanks to Easter travel boost  

London-Heathrow Airport has recorded its busiest April ever in the airport’s 79-year history. The gateway, located to the west of London, handled almost 7.1 million passengers in April 2025. This record-breaking figure, an increase of nearly 6% over the same month in 2024,  has been attributed to a significant Easter getaway which lifted passenger numbers during the second half of the month.

Not only did the airport handle the greatest number of passengers in the month of April ever, but it recorded the highest departure punctuality out of the major European hubs. The airport added in a statement that 99% of all bags traveled on their flights as expected in April 2025, while 97% of passengers waited less than five minutes at security before departing the airport. “This collective effort results in a smooth passenger experience and excellent value for our customers,” said the statement.

In terms of Easter 2025 alone, which fell on the weekend of April 18 to 21, 2025, the holiday produced bumper passenger numbers for Heathrow, with almost one million passengers flying through the airport terminals over the weekend, culminating in the airport’s busiest ever arrivals day with over 140,000 passengers landing on Easter Monday, April 21, 20-25. “Notably, Italy performed particularly well, with record weekends for Florence and Venice,” said the airport.

Ceri Breeze / ShutterstockLooking beyond April, May 2025 has already seen records tumbling at Heathrow, with the Heathrow to New York (JFK) route (the busiest long-haul route in the world)  hitting its millionth passenger of the year in record time.  

“[April 2025] showed Heathrow at its very best,” said Heathrow’s CEO Thomas Woldbye. “We successfully navigated our busiest April ever, whilst our service levels took a further leap forward. We’re providing great value for our passengers, and I’m proud of what we’ve achieved in collaboration with our Team Heathrow partners so far this year. We’re now firmly focused on the busy summer ahead, and work is underway across the airport to ensure we continue delivering for our customers.”

In terms of breaking the April 2025 numbers down further, flights to EU destinations saw 2.4 million passengers travel through Heathrow, an increase of 4.7% year-on-year. Routes to North America saw 1.7 million passengers, a year-on-year increase of 5.5%, while passengers traveling to destinations in Asia-Pacific rose by 9.9% to 899,000 passengers. Notably, the largest year-over-year increase was to airports in the Middle East with an increase of 14.9%.

Alexandre Rotenberg / ShutterstockIn terms of aircraft movements at Heathrow for April 2025,  EU countries were served by 17,845 flights, while UK domestic services saw  3,064 flights. There were 8,030 flights to/from North America, an increase of 3.4%, while flights to the Middle East rose by 6.1% to 2,634 flights.

In terms of cargo, flights to North America carried a huge 53,000 metric tonnes of freight, followed by Asia-Pacific at 34,070 tonnes, and the Middle East at 19,340 tonnes, representing rises of 12.7%, 0.6%, and 7% respectively.

The figures for April 21025 evidence a robust bounce-back after the airport was forced to close to all operations for around 18 hours on March 20, 2025, due to a major fire at a local electricity substation. The shutdown of the airport due to a lack of electrical power caused mass passenger disruption, as well as costing airlines millions of pounds. At the time of writing, no responsible body, including Heathrow Airport, the UK Department of Transport, or the electricity grid providers, has been able to confirm the exact cause of the fire.

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