UK. BAA’s seven UK airports handled a total of 12.4 million passengers during October, a sharp drop of -6.0% year-on-year.
The figures reflect the worsening economic situation in the UK. October was the second successive sharp monthly fall at BAA’s UK properties, following a -5.0% fall in September. In August they were down -1.7%, echoing a similar dip in July.
For the first ten months of 2008, BAA’s UK airport traffic showed a decline of -1.9% at a total of 125.8 million.
Of the key markets, European charter recorded the highest percentage drop (-15.7%) while North Atlantic, domestic, European scheduled and other long haul were down -7.1%, -6.3%, -5.1% and -4.3% respectively.
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October was another tough month for BAA following a -5.0% fall in passengers in September |
On an individual airport level, Heathrow was down -3.7% although its North Atlantic traffic continued to do well (up +7.4%). Gatwick’s positive results on the Irish routes (up +27.3%) and European scheduled (+3.5%) partly offset the steep -41.6% drop in North Atlantic traffic (mainly due to the introduction of the “˜Open Skies’ agreement).
Overall, Gatwick’s passenger traffic declined -10.3% in October. Stansted was down by -6.3% and Southampton by -7.4%.
Overall the Scottish airports posted a drop of -6.1%, Glasgow fell by -9.1%, Aberdeen by -5.3% and Edinburgh by =3.2%.
BAA said it remains of the view that the long-term growth prospects for aviation are good. It noted: “Historically, air traffic growth recovers from short-term shocks such as those currently being played out in the financial markets, as evidenced by the growth in traffic after the Gulf wars, 9/11 and the Asian economic problems in the late 1990s, and the fact that sales of commercial civilian aircraft remain buoyant.”
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