UK. BAA’s seven UK airports saw a -3.1% decrease in passenger numbers to 9.7 million in March, compared with the same month last year. The group attributed the fall to the Easter holidays falling much later this year and the impact of the war in the Middle East.
BAA said: “It is not possible to accurately assess the impact of the many varied events affecting the March traffic figures – Middle Eastern hostilities, SARS and the effect of the late Easter holidays – but our internal planning assumption was that the timing of Easter would reduce traffic by between 2-3% in the month of March.”
London Heathrow was the worst affected by the war and change of Easter dates, down -8.1%, followed by Gatwick, down -6.2% while Aberdeen dropped +1.3%. Other BAA airports experienced traffic growth, with Stansted up +17.4%, Glasgow up +4.6%, Edinburgh up +6.1% and Southampton by +1.7%.
For the month, North Atlantic traffic dropped -8.9% and other long haul routes fell by -12.4%. European charter traffic was down -10.2%, though this mainly reflected the movement of the Easter break.
However, in BAA’s full financial year (1 April 2002 to 31 March 2003), traffic was up +4.7% against the previous year with growth at Heathrow, up +4.3%, Stansted (buoyed by the low cost phenomenon) up +18.9%, Edinburgh up +13.1%, Glasgow up +7.7% and Aberdeen up +0.9%.
Gatwick, down -2.8%, continued to be worst impacted by the knock on effect of September 11, 2001 and Southampton fell by -5.5%. European scheduled routes rose +5.6%, and Irish routes increased +2.7%. North Atlantic and other long haul traffic gained a little ground, up +0.9% and +0.6% respectively.
In BAA’s financial year, air transport movements rose by 1%.
