Public Figures

Britain’s official statistics

Airport passengers

Stansted · May 2026

Stansted handled 2,829,477 terminal passengers in May 2026 — up 5% on May 2025, when it handled 2,703,981.

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.

2,829,477

terminal passengers

Passengers beginning or ending a journey at Stansted, May 2026

That made it the 4th-busiest of the 47 UK airports reporting to the CAA in May 2026.

Its busiest month on our record was August 2024, at 3,061,500. 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. 10thBelfast International632,287
  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 201913,692–3,061,500 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 20262,829,4770up 5% on May 2025
Apr 20262,592,6670up 3% on April 2025
Mar 20262,257,5540down 1% on March 2025
Feb 20261,982,6130down 1% on February 2025
Jan 20261,881,4530up 2% on January 2025
Dec 20252,248,3280up 2% on December 2024
Nov 20252,124,9320little changed on November 2024
Oct 20252,657,4890little changed on October 2024
Sep 20252,679,1500down 1% on September 2024
Aug 20253,044,8190down 1% on August 2024
Jul 20252,896,9760little changed on July 2024
Jun 20252,758,8090down 2% on June 2024
May 20252,703,9810little changed 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.