Heathrow handled 7.859 million passengers in July 2026, a 1.5% decrease from July 2025. The monthly decline came despite a peak daily total that made 19 July the airport’s busiest day of the year to that point.
Heathrow said 267,000 passengers travelled through the airport on 19 July. Total July passenger traffic exceeded 7.85 million, but the full-month figure remained below the comparable year-earlier total. The figures show that a busiest day does not necessarily produce a record month.
Passenger processing performance was also highlighted in the July update. Heathrow said 98.5% of passengers waited less than five minutes at security during the month. It deployed hundreds of additional Here to Help colleagues during the school-holiday peak.
Air transport movements totalled 41,026 in July, down 1.1% year on year. Heathrow also said it was overtaken by Istanbul as Europe’s busiest hub during the month.
Cargo activity moved in the opposite direction from passenger traffic. Heathrow recorded its busiest cargo day of 2026 so far on 12 July, when it handled 5,000 tonnes. Total July cargo reached 136,623 tonnes, up 2.0% from a year earlier.
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The airport said new carriers ITA Airways, Alaska Airlines and Riyadh Air carried more than 136,000 passengers in July. Heathrow referred to this carrier activity, together with its wider traffic performance, when setting out its case for expansion.
Those comments do not mean that an expansion scheme has been approved. Any Heathrow expansion ambitions remain subject to regulatory and planning processes and are separate from the July operating figures.
The July results consequently combine a strong daily peak with a lower year-on-year monthly passenger total. Passenger movements also fell slightly, while cargo volumes increased and security waiting-time performance remained a prominent part of the airport’s account of the school-holiday period.
The July figures preceded Heathrow’s later August traffic release on 11 September 2026.
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