BAA passenger numbers up despite disruptions

Gavin Lipsith

Print Article E-Mail Article E-Mail Author

Passenger levels at UK airport group BAA grew slightly during August despite the impact of the London bomings and Gate Gourmet strike

Passenger levels at British airport authority BAA enjoyed a slight increase during August in the aftermath of the London bombings and the disruption of British Airways (BA) services associated with the Gate Gourmet dispute. BAA's seven UK airports handled a total of 14.3m passengers in August, a rise of 0.5% compared with August 2004.

Performance in all key areas was below recent trends, but only the scheduled flight market in the north Atlantic experienced a drop in volume, down 1.3% against last year's levels. Other long haul routes registered an overall increase of 4.9%, European scheduled traffic was up by 1.5%, UK traffic rose by 1.1% and Irish routes grew 8.3%.

Continued weakness in the short haul charter market, suffering from growth in independent package holidays, was reflected in a 9.2% drop in August.

All individual airports apart from Heathrow recorded increased passenger traffic in August. At Heathrow the large number of BA cancellations on August 12 and 14 combined with the impact of the London attacks on travel in July contributed to a 3% drop in passengers. Charter traffic, which accounted for a third of Gatwick's business in August, was down by 7% on last year but strong growth in the airport's European scheduled and other long haul markets helped it to achieve an overall increase of 1.1%.

Stansted's traffic grew by 4.2% and Southampton continued its rapid growth with an increase of almost 30%. In Scotland, Edinburgh and Aberdeen recorded growth of 6.6% and 6.9% respectively while Glasgow was 1.5% ahead of last August.