BAA October traffic shows modest growth

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BAA announced today its seven UK airports handled a total of 11.4m passengers in October, an increase of 16.2% on the same month last year, when traffic was seriously impacted by the tragic events of September 11

Compared to two years ago, in October 2000, traffic growth was 2.3%.

BAA said the North Atlantic market saw the largest gain in October with an increase of 25.8%, but it remains weak at 13.6% below the level seen in October 2000. Among other markets there were year-on-year gains of 18.4% in domestic traffic (14.4% growth compared with October 2000), 17.9% in European scheduled traffic (4.7% up on 2000) and 14.6% in other long haul routes (down 4.2% compared with 2000).

All of the airports in the group, with the exception of Southampton, recorded an increase in the month compared with last October. Heathrow was up 22.4%, Stansted added 24.2% and Gatwick grew by 5.5%. However the overall volume of traffic at the south-east airports was unchanged against October two years ago, but with strong passenger growth at Stansted offsetting Gatwick and Heathrow.

Over the past year the Scottish airports have continued to perform especially well added BAA, largely underpinned by low fares from traditional and low cost carriers, and traffic was up 10.3% this October and up 18.7% compared to 2000.