BAA sees first passenger rise in 2 years
11.03.10
Clear runways due to an improvement in the weather saw UK airport operator BAA post its first rise in domestic passenger numbers in two years last month. It handled a total of 7.13m passengers during the month, up by 2.4% from February last year (which saw passenger traffic affected by heavy snow across the UK), with domestic passengers up by 1.1%.
At Heathrow, passengers were up by 5.3% as it was largely free of snow and remains more resilient than other UK airports. The underlying figure - adjusted to take account of the weather problems last year was a passenger increase of 2.7%.
Southampton traffic growth was also helped by an improvement in the weather, with passenger numbers climbing by 5.9%, whilst growth of 3.5% at Edinburgh airport was helped by an improvement in the weather and Six Nations rugby-related traffic. However, its Stansted (down 4.5%), Glasgow (down 5.0%) and Aberdeen (down 4.6%) airports saw falls in traffic, indicating continuing difficulties for the industry.
For the first time in two years, domestic traffic across BAA's UK airports was up, by 1.1%. European scheduled services recorded a 2.6% increase and North Atlantic traffic was up by 2.7% despite several periods of heavy snow in the Mid-West and North Eastern parts of the US. Other long haul traffic rose by 4.0% overall with strong contributions from services to China (up 6.8%), the Middle East (up 11.1%) and South America (up 17.6%).
In total the Group recorded a drop of 0.2% in the number of air transport movements (Heathrow up 2.1%) and an increase of 23.2% in the tonnage of cargo handled. This latter result represents the third consecutive month of double-digit increases in cargo and closely matches experience of the global air-freight industry.
In the 12 months to the end of February BAA UK airport passengers were down 3.1% (106.8m) compared to the previous 12 months. Heathrow passengers were down 0.4% (to 66.1m), Stansted down 9.6% (19.8m) and Southampton down 6.4% (1.8m). In Scotland passengers were up 1.6% at Edinburgh (9.0m), but down 10.5% (7.1m) at Glasgow and 9.0% at Aberdeen (3.0m).
BAA chief executive Colin Matthews said: ‘Heathrow remains resilient and other airports are beginning to see encouraging signs. However traffic remains depressed, reflecting tough conditions in the economy generally and in aviation specifically.’
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