London Stansted handled 109,881 passengers on Sunday 25 October, its busiest day ever, in a record October of 2.79m. Work on new terminal skylinks has begun.

London Stansted had the busiest day in its history on Sunday 25 October, when 109,881 passengers travelled through the airport during the October half-term getaway. The Essex airport handled 2.79 million passengers across the whole of October, its best October on record, according to London Stansted.

That monthly total was 4.2% up on October 2025 and 113,000 more than the previous record for the month.

Where people flew

The airport puts the growth down to a strong half-term and a handful of flagship routes. More than 101,000 people flew to or from Istanbul in October. Turkish Airlines joined Stansted this year with 15 flights a week to the Turkish city, which the airport describes as a gateway to more than 350 destinations worldwide.

Dublin and Edinburgh were the second and third most flown-to destinations. By country, Spain came first, with 462,000 people travelling there in the month, followed by Italy and Turkey.

Gareth Powell, London Stansted’s managing director, said:

“This was another landmark month for London Stansted, culminating in our busiest ever day and busiest October on record.

“The record passenger numbers reflect both the continuing strength of demand across our network and the busy half-term holiday getaway, which saw thousands of passengers, including overseas visitors to the UK, choose Stansted for autumn breaks and visits to friends and family.”

The terminal works

The record month comes while the airport is part way through what it calls its transformation programme, intended to add capacity, make operations more resilient and improve the passenger experience.

The Transport Secretary, Heidi Alexander MP, toured the airport last week and was shown work on the new skylink walkways, which Stansted says are key to extending the existing terminal building. Foundations and steelwork are under way on the construction site. The skylinks themselves are being pre-assembled in a vacant airport hangar and will be moved across to the site in the coming months.

A cleared construction site beside the Stansted terminal with excavators, foundation markings and the control tower behind
Preparation work for the new skylink walkways at London Stansted. Photo: supplied by London Stansted Airport

Mr Powell said:

“The airport now serves nearly 31m passengers a year and plays a key role in driving trade, investment and tourism for London and the East of England. With planning permission to serve up to 51m passengers over the next two decades, [this] provides us with a strong platform to unlock the spare capacity on our existing runway and deliver our ambitious plans to increase passenger numbers and help improve the UK’s connectivity with the rest of the world.

“In addition, we’re also making good progress on our transformation programme. It was a pleasure last week to welcome the Secretary of State for Transport to the airport and demonstrate the scale of our investment, the progress being made to support future growth and enhancements to the airport experience for passengers in the years ahead.

“As this work continues to ramp up, we remain focused on delivering an efficient and reliable experience for every passenger flying from London Stansted while continuing to further develop our route network to support connectivity, trade and economic growth across our region.”

What it means for you

  • Busy peaks are getting busier. The previous single-day record has now gone, set on a half-term Sunday. School holidays are when the terminal is at its fullest.
  • Building work runs alongside flights. The skylink construction is next to the existing terminal, and the airport says it is focused on keeping the passenger experience “efficient and reliable” while the work ramps up.
  • More long-haul links without going into London. Besides the Turkish Airlines service to Istanbul, Emirates flies twice daily to Dubai from Stansted. The airport serves 200 destinations in 40 countries.
  • Jobs. Stansted says more than 12,000 people work there for 200 companies, making it the largest single-site employer in the East of England.

Stansted handled 30 million passengers in 2025, which the airport says made it the third busiest airport in London and the fourth busiest in the UK. It currently has planning permission to grow to 51 million passengers a year.