London Stansted to submit planning application for expansion ‘in coming weeks’
Stansted Airport intends to submit plans to increase its passenger capacity to nearly 51m “within the coming weeks” after reporting a record season of winter passenger traffic.
The London hub said it had recently concluded a consultation on the proposals, with the expansion expected to be completed by the 2040s.
A record winter of traffic concluded with some 2.3m passengers taking off from the airport in March, up 7.5 per cent year-on-year.
Stansted said close to 30m passengers had passed through its gates over the last 12 months, an increase of 4.8 per cent.
“Our growth continues to be driven by the great value, choice and efficient airport operation we can offer our passengers, and the strong demand we see from people wanting to take advantage of our compelling and unique proposition will only increase as we head towards the summer,” Gareth Powell, Stansted’s managing director, said.
“The summer schedule is now underway where we will welcome several new airlines and launch 14 new routes, with six already on our departure board including Casablanca, Rotterdam and Linz in Austria.”
Stansted already received approval from the Planning Inspectorate for a £600m extension of its terminal building in 2023, which would bring passenger capacity to 43m.
The airport, the UK’s third busiest, received £1.1bn in funding for its initial proposals as part of the government’s Autumn Budget in October.
Its latest Sustainable Development Plan intends to bring capacity up further to 51m.
Powell said: “We recently closed a consultation on our plan to accommodate up to 51 million passengers by the 2040s without any increase in the number of flights the airport is already permitted to operate and within the existing airport boundary.
“It’s our intention to submit a planning application within the coming weeks that will seek to increase our annual passenger limit from 43m up to 51m passengers, with initial results from the consultation showing strong support for our approach to sustainably growing the airport over the next couple of decades.”