Passengers down at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted
12.07.08
Passenger numbers at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted airports were down in June. Heathrow saw passenger numbers fall by 0.9% compared to June last year to just under 6 million. At Gatwick traffic was down 1.1% to just over 3.3 million, and at Stansted passenger numbers fell by 5.7% to just under 2.1 million.
Whilst traffic was down at Heathrow, the airport did experience an increase in long haul flights, which BAA says are characterised by higher occupancy and profitability per passenger. North Atlantic passengers were up 10.7%, but domestic (-2.7%), Irish (-15.2%) and European Scheduled (-6.4%) passengers all fell.
Gatwick airport showed a decline in North Atlantic traffic as airlines switch flights to Heathrow on the back of the EU - US Open Skies agreement, but European scheduled traffic was up by 10.8% and Irish traffic by 30.5%. At Stansted the Irish market was up 2.6%, but all the other markets were negative.
A spokesman for BAA said: ‘Given the combination of a weakening global economic climate and the impact of higher fuel costs on airfares, this result compares well with results coming from some major UK retailers’.
BAA’s airports outside London had mixed fortunes. Glasgow declined by 4.9%, but Edinburgh confirmed its position as Scotland’s most popular airport by seeing passenger numbers increase by 1.5% to 859,000. Aberdeen airport was down by 1.9%, but Southampton saw a 1.6% increase in passengers.
In total, BAA’s UK airports have handled 70.4 million passengers this year to date, a drop of 0.6% on the same period last year. June’s passengers were 13.5 million, a drop of 1.8% on the same month last year. In the 12 months to the end of June Heathrow had 67.7m passengers (+1.2%), Gatwick 35.5m (+3.0%) and Stansted 23.2m (-2.0%). Southampton had 2.0m (+3.5%), Glasgow 8.6m5 (-3.6%), Edinburgh 9.1m (+4.3%) and Aberdeen 3.4m (+2.4%).
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