The North East’s largest airport, Newcastle International, is preparing for a bumper February half term with over 75,000 passengers expected to pass through the doors over the holiday period.
The most popular destinations for the school holiday getaway are the Canary Islands. Just a four hour flight from Newcastle, passengers heading to the islands will enjoy highs of 21°C and some of the warmest temperatures in Europe.
The most popular of the Canary Islands for the North East travelling public this half term is Tenerife, followed by Lanzarote, Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura. Passengers can choose from 37 flights departing from Newcastle Airport to the Canaries over the half term period.
As well as jetting off for some winter sun, winter skiing is also high up on the agenda for North East families. Next week will see thousands of passengers heading for a long-awaited ski holiday, visiting favourite snow-covered resorts across Switzerland, Bulgaria, France, Austria and Italy.
Other popular destinations for the half term getaway include mainland Spain, Dubai, Turkey and Egypt. For those looking for a city break, passengers can choose from flights to destinations such as Rome, Krakow, Wroclaw, Frankfurt and Dusseldorf.
Of those passengers travelling further afield, the most popular long haul destination is the USA, with passengers connecting from the region to locations such as Orlando and New York amongst others. Those travelling to the USA can easily connect through London Heathrow, Paris, Amsterdam or Frankfurt from Newcastle International.
Nick Jones, Chief Executive at Newcastle International Airport said: “Our airline partners have reacted to the strong demand for travel from the region by investing in additional capacity from Newcastle for 2022. February has seen the restart of flights to many destinations, including Hurghada, Faro and Rome, and we look forward to seeing further flights operating to even more destinations as we head into the spring and the summer season.
“It is wonderful to see more passengers back at the Airport for February half term, with many families finally heading off on a long-awaited holiday. As a business we have been working hard to prepare for the increase in passengers that we expect to see between now and the summer season and are very much looking forward to welcoming passengers from across the region back to the Airport.”
As passenger numbers grow the Airport remains committed to its goal of becoming Net Zero Carbon by the year 2035. The business recently received planning approval from Newcastle City Council to build a solar farm on Airport land, which is part of a plan to eventually provide 100% of the Airport’s electricity by renewable means.
The Airport has also committed to using its land to create several new areas of woodland, with the planting of over 8,300 trees about to start. The project, part of the North East Community Forest, aims to help offset carbon emissions.