Public Figures

Britain’s official statistics

Airport passengers

Sumburgh · May 2026

Sumburgh handled 26,004 terminal passengers in May 2026 — down 10% on May 2025, when it handled 28,815.

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.

26,004

terminal passengers

Passengers beginning or ending a journey at Sumburgh, May 2026

61 more passed through in transit and are not in this figure

That made it the 27th-busiest of the 47 UK airports reporting to the CAA in May 2026.

Its busiest month on our record was July 2024, at 29,956. 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. 16 airports between
    27thSumburgh26,004
  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 201990929,956 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 202626,00461down 10% on May 2025
Apr 202624,95312up 3% on April 2025
Mar 202623,353177up 6% on March 2025
Feb 202619,846721down 2% on February 2025
Jan 202617,518623down 11% on January 2025
Dec 202517,96213down 12% on December 2024
Nov 202517,3720down 16% on November 2024
Oct 202524,8140down 6% on October 2024
Sep 202524,9540down 4% on September 2024
Aug 202525,33787down 10% on August 2024
Jul 202528,09097down 6% on July 2024
Jun 202528,87691up 9% on June 2024
May 202528,81529up 10% 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.