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Apr 13, 2006
According to March 2006 statistics released by the British Aviation
Authority (BAA), UK
airports handled a total of 11.4 million passengers in March, a decrease of
1.3% on the previous year. BAA says the downtrend was distorted by the late
Easter season this year.
For the financial year ending in March, BAA’s UK airports
handled 144.6 million passengers, a 2.0% increase over 2004/05. For March 2006,
domestic traffic was also hit by cancellations caused by heavy snow early in
the month in Scotland
and the North East. Among other markets, European scheduled, fell 0.4%, and
European charter decreased 15.4%. North Atlantic
traffic was down slightly on recent trends with a drop of 2.8%, but other long
haul traffic advanced 4.6%.
Heathrow’s 3.8% decline in March took its year end total to 67.4
million, a decrease of 0.3%. BAA says the softening UK
economy, the fallout from the London
bombings in July, the Gate Gourmet dispute in late summer, lower load factors
in some markets, and higher oil prices, all had an impact on Heathrow’s
passenger numbers for the year.
However, BAA points out that Gatwick had its best year on record, with
32.8 million passengers passing through the airport, up 2.6 % on last year. This
was despite at 0.1% decrease in the March total. Stansted recorded an increase
of 1.3% in March, giving an annual total of 22.2 million, up 5.0% on the
previous year.
Over the year, Southampton achieved an
increase of 20.1% to 1.9 million, helped by a 5.2% gain in March. Glasgow increased by 2.4%
over the year to a total of 8.8 million following an increase of 1.2% in March.
The equivalent figures at Edinburgh
were an annual growth of 5.6% and a 0.8% rise in March. The strongest annual
growth among the Scottish airports was the 9.5% increase at Aberdeen, helped by an 11.5% increase in
March.
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