BIRMINGHAM Airport has recorded its busiest year ever with 10 million passengers using it in the past 12 months.

Latest figures show 10,004,119 arriving and departing passengers passed through the terminal between Friday, August 28, 2014 and Thursday, August 27, this year for the first time in the airport’s 76 year history. This represents a 5.1 per cent increase compared with the same period the previous year.

The airport has achieved nine record-breaking months and four record days, on the way to breaking the 10 million passenger mark in the past 12 months. It is one of only seven airports in the UK, and three outside London, to serve more than 10 million passengers a year.

Birmingham Airport’s chief executive, Paul Kehoe, said: "Reaching 10 million passengers within 12 months is a great achievement for everyone connected with the airport. It’s a real milestone which shows that our strategy of giving our passengers choice and great customer service is working. We have celebrated many accomplishments this year to get to this point, including American Airlines launching daily flights to New York JFK, Hainan Airlines’ historic flights to Beijing and Emirates launching its third daily service to Dubai. We have also seen other airlines commence flights to key destinations such as Madrid and Reykjavik, as well as monthly and daily passenger records smashed on a regular basis. We’re now focussed on hitting 10 million passengers for the calendar year and will be working very hard to achieve that goal."