Public Figures

Britain’s official statistics

Airport passengers

Belfast City (George Best) · May 2026

Belfast City (George Best) handled 217,022 terminal passengers in May 2026 — up 10% on May 2025, when it handled 198,100.

Read from the Civil Aviation Authority’s monthly airport data, table 09 — terminal and transit passengers, in the vintage we archived on 11 August 2026.

217,022

terminal passengers

Passengers beginning or ending a journey at Belfast City (George Best), May 2026

That made it the 16th-busiest of the 47 UK airports reporting to the CAA in May 2026.

Its busiest month on our record was July 2019, at 256,565. The record starts in January 2019.

The busiest UK airports in May 2026

  1. 1stHeathrow7,120,998
  2. 2ndGatwick3,738,837
  3. 3rdManchester2,930,308
  4. 4thStansted2,829,477
  5. 5thLuton1,753,706
  6. 6thEdinburgh1,654,718
  7. 7thBirmingham1,306,203
  8. 8thBristol1,077,177
  9. 9thGlasgow817,491
  10. 5 airports between
  11. out of 47 UK airports reporting that month

Terminal passengers, as published. Alderney, Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man report to the CAA but are not in the United Kingdom; they have pages here and are left out of this ranking.

Every month on record

Jan 20192,503256,565 across 89 readings on recordMay 2026

One cell per month from Jan 2019 to May 2026, shaded from this airport’s own quietest month to its busiest. The record starts in January 2019, which is far enough back to hold a pre-2020 comparison.

The last thirteen months

MonthTerminal passengersIn transitOn the same month a year earlier
May 2026217,0220up 10% on May 2025
Apr 2026214,9350up 9% on April 2025
Mar 2026212,64165up 7% on March 2025
Feb 2026187,9340up 6% on February 2025
Jan 2026171,4310up 4% on January 2025
Dec 2025202,6230up 7% on December 2024
Nov 2025200,5730up 4% on November 2024
Oct 2025193,5520down 3% on October 2024
Sep 2025187,8900down 6% on September 2024
Aug 2025218,3020down 5% on August 2024
Jul 2025222,0380down 2% on July 2024
Jun 2025201,10365down 5% on June 2024
May 2025198,1000down 6% on May 2024

Each month is compared with the same month a year earlier, which is the comparison the CAA makes. The percentage here is ours, calculated from the two months in our own series rather than taken from the publisher’s comparison column.