BAA reports UK Airports' May Traffic Figures

BAA’s UK airports handled a total 12.7 million passengers in May 2008, a drop of 0.5% on the same month last year.

This marginal decrease was due to a 5.3% fall in UK Domestic passengers and a 2.5% decrease in European Charter market passengers (where a jump in load factors of 4.8 points helped to offset a 7.9% drop in seat capacity).

Other key markets all recorded modest increases, with Europe Scheduled up 0.9%, North Atlantic by 0.5% and other Long Haul by 1.2%.

Among individual airports Heathrow (+0.6%) and Gatwick (+1.1%) were both busier than last year but Stansted’s passenger total was down by 3.3%. Southampton increased 6.9% but Glasgow suffered from capacity cuts in charter, domestic and North Atlantic services to record a drop in passengers of 9.1%. (It had also benefited in the previous year from the presence of the UEFA Cup Final in Glasgow involving two Spanish teams).

Edinburgh’s traffic was up by 0.7% and Aberdeen’s was 1.3% lower than a year ago.

In total, BAA’s airports handled 1.1% fewer air transport movements in May but a 3.3% increase in cargo tonnage, with Heathrow up by 11%, in line with growth seen since the beginning of the year.

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