STAFF at Belfast International Airport are flying high as passenger numbers hurtle towards a new record at the end of the year.
Already, the airport has broken all previous passenger records by exceeding the 5,243,038 achieved in 2007 – and that number is set to rise higher with fives weeks left to run.
To mark the milestone, a gift of two free flight tickets were presented to Glenda Garrett from Larne who recently checked in as the first customer to break the record.
She was about to travel to the US with daughter, Lauren, on board a Norwegian flight, when she was told she was the lucky winner, checking in as passenger number 5,243,039.
Belfast International Airport Managing Director Graham Keddie,who presented the tickets, said it had been a "record-breaking" year for Belfast.
"Anyone travelling through the airport will notice how busy it is and we are looking forward to 2018 being even better," he said.
"The traditional Christmas and New Year rush is expected to see the airport end 2017 by achieving a total in excess of 5.7 million passengers."
Meanwhile, airline and package holiday specialist Jet2.com and Jet2holidays has announced it is adding another aircraft – a Boeing 737-800 – to the fleet at Belfast International to support a 41 per cent increase in capacity.
The company, which is also investing in 30 new jobs, has also launched another route – to Dalaman in Turkey – to its busy summer schedule from Belfast.
Next summer's flight and holiday programme is the biggest to date for Jet2 , with more than 400,000 seats on sale for Northern Irish holidaymakers.
The flights to Dalaman will depart every Tuesday from June 26, until September 25, 2018, adding to the other new destinations for 2018, including Antalyato, Almeria, Crete, Madeira, Malta, Naples, Paphos and Rhodes.
