UK. Heathrow Airport handled 5.4 million passengers in November, a record for the month and up +3.1% on November 2011. Part of the percentage increase was due to the late school half term, as well as disruption in November last year. Taking these and other factors in to account, the results show an underlying increase of +0.4% for the month.
Heathrow’s load factor – showing how full the average flight was -also set a record for the month at 72.8%.
North Atlantic traffic was up +2.4% and European scheduled traffic was up +7.1% compared with November last year. Within the latter, France was up +9.8%, Germany up +9.2% and Italy up +10.7%. Greek traffic continued to be down, however, with a reduction of -14.6% on the same period in 2011. Of the BRIC economies, passenger numbers were up +6% to Brazil, +6.2% to Russia and +12.9% to China, but down -1.3% to India.
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Heathrow Airport Chief Executive Colin Matthews said: “Passenger figures to the BRIC economies continue to be strong, illustrating the demand for routes to emerging markets. But there’s more demand that the UK can’t meet – because its only hub airport, Heathrow, is full.
“Last month we launched our first response to the Government’s Airports Commission, which is looking into this lack of capacity. It concluded there are just three options for government – do nothing, expand Heathrow or close Heathrow and open a new hub airport elsewhere.”
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