At Gatwick, the world’s busiest single-runway airport, it is also proving impossible to accommodate further aircraft during peak periods, a spokesman said.
Among Britain’s other leading airports, Stansted and sister hub Manchester, which are both expanding their terminal facilities, reported their busiest-ever months in August, five years after the prior records were set in the pre-Covid summer of 2019.
Michael O’Leary, the Ryanair chief executive, said there was evidence that the political tide was turning on aviation, as governments previously quick to condemn the industry for its contribution to carbon production softened their positions.
“You go back four or five years – aviation, despite only accounting for 2.5pc of emissions, was getting blamed for the whole of climate change and global warming,” he said.
“It was an easy hobby horse for them to all join in. The Swedes were talking about flight-shaming. Now the Swedes have abolished their aviation tax.
“We’re seeing that trend right across Europe. They’ve all begun to realise that we need to encourage air travel and tourism. It’s a key driver of economic growth, it’s good for society and it will take place on much more environmentally efficient aircraft.”
Labour has been ambivalent in its stance on airports: it opposed Heathrow expansion in 2018, but MPs were given a free vote, with 100 rebelling. But O’Leary said he blamed Boris Johnson and his plans for a Heathrow replacement in the Thames estuary for poisoning the well against expansion.
He said: “Labour, we hope, will tidy up. One of the ways to deliver growth, particularly post-Brexit, is to facilitate more investment in air travel and tourism.”
Whether that will extend to backing for an enlarged Heathrow, O’Leary is not so sure. A revival of plans to build a runway across the M25 is likely to prove tough to stomach.
Full continental airports
It is not only in England where airport expansion is an issue.
Ryanair, which carries more passengers on UK-based jets than any other airline, faces a battle over capacity closer to home. Its Dublin base is set to deprive airlines of operating slots next summer after falling foul of a 17-year-old planning law.
While the airport has an annual capacity of 60m passengers after the opening of a second runway in 2022, the regulation imposes a cap of 32m. Dublin expects to handle 33m this year due to the number of flights granted to airlines by the Irish Aviation Authority, suggesting plans must be curtailed.
Dublin Airport boss Kenny Jacobs said: “We want to grow, but we can’t until this planning condition is removed, so we’re having to ask the regulator to intervene and grant fewer flight slots to protect ourselves legally. It’s making me feel schizophrenic.”
The airport wants to raise the limit to 40m passengers and is applying to remove the cap, which Jacobs said is based on redundant concerns about the ability of local roads to handle airport traffic. However, it faces a three-year planning battle to do so.
A similar drama has been playing out in the Netherlands, where Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, western Europe’s third-busiest after Heathrow and Paris Charles de Gaulle, was ordered to slash flights to reduce its noise profile in 2022.
The move to diminish a crown jewel of the Dutch economy met with incredulity from Schiphol and flag carrier KLM, and provoked alarm across the wider industry. The US department of transportation complained that the decision violated an open skies accord with the European Union.
The Dutch government initially backed off but this month confirmed that the plan will go ahead, albeit with a cap of between 475,000 and 485,000 annual flights, up from the 440,000 originally proposed. Flights at Schipol peaked at around 495,000 in 2019.