BAA reports late summer surge
UK passenger numbers for August were up on last year.
BAA announced that 13.2 million passengers passed through it’s airports during August, up 2.3% on August 2001. The biggest increases were in Europe, with charter traffic up 10.6% for the month, to 2.1 million charter passengers.
The UK airports operator said that the poor weather at the start of the summer and decision by people to wait until after the World Cup to take their holidays, was the reason for the late surge.
Domestic traffic, boosted by low fares from no-frills and traditional carriers, was up 9.2% from last August. The most popular destination was Edinburgh, which received 15.1% more passengers. Low fares also boosted passenger numbers to Ireland, which were up 5.2%.
Long haul trips were up on previous months, but still 2.3% lower than August last year, particularly North Atlantic traffic, which was down 8%.
With carriers such as British Airways consolidating services at Heathrow, Gatwick has been struggling, and passenger numbers were down 2.7% on last August. However, this was its best performance since 11 September.
Read our previous stories:
16-August-2002 Air Travel on the mend
7-June-2002 BAA performs well in tough times
10-May-2002 BAA sees April traffic figures fall
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