T: 020 7248 2227 E: info@airportwatch.org.uk

Airport passenger numbers plummet in 2009 as Britons stay at home

11.1.2010 (Telegraph)

Britain's major airports bore the brunt of last year's "staycation" with figures showing that they carried 4.7 million passengers fewer than in 2008.

By David Millward, Transport Editor

The 4.1% drop, announced by BAA, reflected a year in which the recession saw demand for overseas holidays drop and a number of airlines ground planes to save money.

Worst hit was Stansted, with 2.3 million drop – representing 10% of total as both Ryanair and easyJet cut back on capacity.

Passenger numbers plummeted in the first half of the year, when not only was the economy at its lowest ebb, but weather forecasters were predicting a "barbecue summer".

When the barbecue summer stubbornly refused to appear, there was a surge in bookings in the second half of the year, which slowed down the rate of decline compared to the first six months of 2009.

BAA now operates six airports: Heathrow, Stansted, Southampton, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen having been forced to sell Gatwick by the Competition Commission. Last year these six airports handled 106.9 million passengers.

A spokesman for Stansted, an airport heavily dependent on holiday traffic, described 2009 as a "game of two halves".

It was hit by the decision of both Ryanair and easyJet to delay introducing their summer timetables because of the downturn, but saw a recovery as the recession eased.

Glasgow also had a bad year with an 11.3 % fall in passengers, with numbers being hit by the collapse of Globespan at the end of the year.

"2009 was a difficult year for our airline customers," said Colin Matthews, BAA's chief executive.

"Towards the end of the year, we saw signs of improvements, particularly at Heathrow, but there are more challenging times ahead in 2010."

link to article

see the BAA press release with all the details:

December traffic figures: BAA's airports

Date Added: 11th January 2010

Passengers at BAA's 6 UK airports were down -0.8% on Dec 2008. Bad weather accounted for about 150,000 passengers. Heathrow was up +1.2% on Dec 2008. Stansted declined -2.6% in December, the "best" performance since March 2008. Glasgow was down -8.8%, Edinburgh down -4.4%, Aberdeen down -9.4%, Southampton down -5.9%. Cargo tonnage was up 20% on last year. For the 6 airports, for all of 2009, passengers were down -4.2% and cargo down -7.7% on 2008.

Click here to view full story...

2009 figures (for the 6 airports):

Terminal passengers were down -0.9% in Dec 2009 compared to Dec 2008.

Terminal passengers were down -4.2% during all of 2009 compared to all of 2008.

Air transport movements were down -3.9% in Dec 2009 compared to Dec 2008.

Air transport movements were down - 6.5% in all of 2009 compared to 2008.

Air cargo was up +20.0% in Dec 2009 compared to Dec 2008.

Air cargo was up -7.7% in all of 2009 compared to all of 2008.

2008 figures (for the 7 airports):

Terminal passengers were down -6.9% in Dec 2008 compared to Dec 2007.

Terminal passengers were down -2.8% during all of 2008 compared to all of 2007.

Air transport movements were down -5.8% in Dec 2008 compared to Dec 2007.

Air transport movements were down - 2.4% in all of 2008 compared to 2007.

Air cargo was down -15.1% in Dec 2008 compared to Dec 2007.

Air cargo was up +0.3% in all of 2008 compared to all of 2007.

and by comparison, this is the equivalent story from twi years earlier - the figures for 2007 :

Christmas period - BAA's airports handle more flights in 2007 than last year

10.1.2008 (Holiday Extras)

Passenger numbers at BAA’s UK airports were up 0.7% in December over the same month in 2006. Total passenger numbers for 2007 at the seven airports were almost 150 million, an increase of 1.6% compared to 2006.

In December:

- Long haul flights to North America saw passenger numbers up 6.3% from BAA airports.

- There was also a 2.5% increase on other long haul routes.

- At Heathrow passenger numbers were up by 3.2%.

- At Gatwick passengers were up by 2.7%.

- At Southampton airport passengers grew by 2.6%.

- Edinburgh grew by 3.6%.

- At Stansted there were 8.6% fewer passengers as Ryanair and Air Berlin axed some flights.

- However, European scheduled traffic was unchanged on 2006, passengers on European charter flights fell by 1.7%.

- Passenger numbers on domestic flights declined by 3.5% during December.

- Glasgow was down, by 5%.

- Aberdeen was down by 2.2%.

- Ryanair saw passenger numbers increase by a whopping 18% in December compared to the previous year. Total passenger numbers were up from 3.36 to 3.95 million people.

- easyJet few 2.64 million more passengers, up 9.9% on December 2006. (And as it introduced more new flights from various UK airports the total number of passengers carried by easyJet in 2007 rose by an impressive 13.5% to 38.2 million during the year). However, easyJet's load factor fell from 84.6% in 2006 to to 83.5% in 2007 as a whole, and only 78.9% in December.

http://www.holidayextras.co.uk/news/hx-travel/uk-airports-handle-more-flights-11214.html

(11th January 2010)

:: Back to News Index ::