Royal Wedding Gives Heathrow Its Busiest May Ever

June 11, 2018

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2 min read

Royal Wedding Gives Heathrow Its Busiest May Ever

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Prince Harry and Meghan Markle did more for Britain than add modern touches to a centuries-old institution: Their royal wedding helped push traffic to Heathrow Airport, giving it its busiest May on record.

Heathrow (LHR) announced Monday that 6.7 million people traveled through the UK's primary airport, a 3.1 jump over May 2017. Northern American royal fans gave an especially big boost, with traffic from across the Pond up 5%.

Aerial view of one of Terminal 5 buildings of London Heathrow Airport and Boeing 747 and 777 aircraft operated by British Airways at the gates (Image by Grzegorz Bajor via Getty Images)

Traffic at the airport has grown steadily since 2011, with 78 million flyers passing through its gates in 2017, up from 75.7 million in 2016 and 75 million in 2015. In 2017, the airport Last week, the British government approved a long-awaited third runway, with supporters lauding the decision to expand one of the world's busiest airports.

Prince Harry, sixth in line to the throne, married the newly minted Duchess of Sussex, the American-born former Meghan Markle, on May 19 at St. George's Chapel in Windsor.

This story has been corrected to state that Prince Harry is now sixth, not fifth, in line to the throne after the birth of his nephew, Prince Louis.

Featured image by FilmMagic