BAA traffic up 1.9% in January

Emily Pacey

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The UK airports group handled 10.1m passengers in January, showing a modest rise of 1.9% on the same month last year

BAA's seven UK airports together handled 10.1m passengers in January, 1.9% more than in January 2005.
 
The best-performing market segment was long-haul (excluding North Atlantic traffic) which grew by 6.8%, boosted by a 98% increase in passengers on newly expanded Indian services. North Atlantic traffic continued its downward trend, falling by 3.4% in January. European scheduled traffic rose by 4.5% and Irish traffic by 3.7%. Less strong was domestic traffic, which grew by 1.1%. BAA's continued focus on the scheduled sector produced a 17.7% fall in European charter traffic.
 
At Heathrow airport BAA blamed a drop of 7.4% in passengers on UK routes on reduced capacity. Overall Heathrow welcomed 0.6% fewer passengers in January compared to last year. Gatwick's traffic rose by 2.1%, and Stansted by 6.9%. Southampton grew by 9.4%, which BAA attributed to an expansion in domestic services from the airport. The best performance for all BAA UK airports was recorded by Aberdeen, where a surge in North Sea oil activity helped increase passenger numbers by 15.9%.
 
BAA released last month's traffic figures in the wake of reports of a possible takeover bid by Spanish construction and engineering company Grupo Ferrovial.