The number of passengers travelling through Britain’s major airports dipped last year, figures out today showed.
The seven UK airports run by the BAA company, which include Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted, handled 145.8 million passengers in 2008 - a drop of 2.8 per cent compared with 2007.
At 66.9 million, the number of passengers using Heathrow Airport last year was down 1.4 per cent, while Gatwick dipped 2.8 per cent and Stansted fell 6 per cent. The Government is due this month to decide whether to give the go-ahead to expansion at Heathrow in the form of a third runway and a sixth terminal.
Expansion would increase the number of air transport movements (take-off and landings) from around 480,000 a year to 702,000. Today, BAA announced that air traffic movements at Heathrow had dipped by 0.5 per cent in 2008 to a total of 473,139.
There was a fall in passenger numbers last year at all four of BAA’s other UK airports, with Southampton down 0.8 per cent, Glasgow dipping 6.8 per cent, Edinburgh declining 0.5 per cent and Aberdeen going down 3.5 per cent.
The figures for December alone showed that the seven airports handled 10.18 million passengers - 6.9 per cent down on the December 2007 total.
Heathrow numbers last month were down only 2.3 per cent, but Gatwick passenger numbers fell 13.8 per cent, while Stansted was down 13 per cent, Southampton fell 5.4 per cent, Glasgow decreased 10.7 per cent, Edinburgh was down 2,5 per cent and Aberdeen declined 3.2 per cent.
In the individual sectors, the biggest passenger fall last year was on European and North African charter routes which were down 7.4 per cent compared with 2007. All other sectors fell , too, with the UK and Channel Islands’ traffic dropping 5.9 per cent.
Taking December alone, the biggest fall was on European and North African charter flights where passenger numbers plunged 21.6 per cent.
Air transport movements for December were down 5.8 per cent compared with December 2007, while movements for the whole of 2008 were down 2.4 per cent compared with 2007.
BAA said today: “We expect, on the evidence of historic economic downturns and the resulting effect on air traffic, that the long-term prospects for growth remain good and that passenger volumes will recover in due course.”
Agencies