Traffic down at UK airports
BAA’s seven UK airports handled a total of 14.4 million passengers in August, a drop of 3.1% on the same month last year.
Chief executive Colin Matthews warned that the rest of 2009 remains challenging.
Stansted recorded a drop of 7.8%, largely down to airline capacity reductions, and Southampton’s figures fell by 3.7%.
Glasgow recorded a 13.4% decrease in August, and Aberdeen was 9.8% down on last year.
However, Heathrow recorded its busiest ever August – up 0.3% – fuelled by a strong leisure market and its network of international routes.
“Heathrow’s traffic performance in July and August was good,†said Matthews.
“The airport benefits from being the hub of a strong international route network, which is important both socially and economically
“Industry conditions remain difficult. A continuation of the improving trend at Heathrow depends on business travellers re-establishing face-to-face contact with global markets.”
BAA said Heathrow saw a 19% increase in traffic to India.
“The people and communities who use these routes to visit friends and family here and around the world count on Heathrow as the only London airport that serves India,†said BAA.
“The number of passengers transferring at Heathrow continues to rise, with travellers taking advantage of the shorter waiting times between connections at Heathrow, which come from the high frequency of services and the improved terminal facilities.
“The pound’s position against the dollar and euro has also helped Heathrow’s transfer business. Airline load factors grew by 2.7% to 81%.â€
Meanwhile, Gatwick recorded a 4.6% reduction against August 2008, but was the only airport to grow its domestic market (1.2%) and its European scheduled traffic grew by 5.6%.
Edinburgh’s numbers are up for the fifth consecutive month (4.8%), helped by new low-cost scheduled services to Europe.
BAA said for the group as a whole, the number of air transport movements in August was 5.2% lower than a year ago “when airlines were only beginning to respond to the downturn in traffic by cutting services”.
By Bev Fearis
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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