UK. UK airports handled 210 million passengers during the 2010 calendar year, a fall of -3.4% (or 7.4 million) on 2009, according to figures published by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
Passenger numbers have now fallen consecutively for three years to a level lower than in 2004. With last year’s ash cloud, industrial action and weather-related problems among the key factors, there were significant year-on-year falls in January, April, May and December.
Iain Osborne, CAA Director of Regulatory Policy said: “The UK’s fragile recovery is not yet driving increases in passenger numbers. Although the decline in business travel levelled out last year, leisure travel continued to fall in 2010. Without the year’s exceptional events, with snow, strikes and volcanic ash all affecting aviation, passenger numbers overall would likely have been level with 2009.
“Although airports in the South East of England were less affected, airports in the rest of the UK saw significant falls in passenger numbers, with some now facing financial challenges as a result. Airlines have in the main coped well with unprecedented drops in passenger numbers, increasing load factors and sustaining margins where possible.
“Overall, the outlook for aviation is still uncertain. A return to robust economic growth should see increased passenger numbers, but this will be affected by other costs that bear on the sector, such as high oil prices and taxation, and by the availability of capacity. Congestion in the South-East could also see more customers flying from regional airports, or via other European hubs to travel to or from the UK.”
The decrease in passenger numbers was more marked in the second quarter of the year, with a drop of -9% compared with the same period in 2009. In large part this reduction was due to the Icelandic volcanic eruption in April leading to the closure of large segments of European airspace. During the summer months, passenger numbers were broadly flat, while the adverse weather over Christmas led to a fall of -2.4% in passenger numbers during the fourth quarter.
Apart from months affected by snow, volcanic ash and strikes, passenger numbers handled at UK airports were similar to those carried during 2009, suggesting that underlying demand was broadly flat during 2010.
Regional airports were proportionately more affected than London airports:
• At the London airports – Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton and London City – the fall was -2% to 127 million passengers. The largest decline in percentage terms was at Stansted (-7%), followed by Luton (-4%) and Gatwick (-3%). Conversely, Heathrow was broadly flat (-0.2%) year on year, serving 66 million passengers in 2010. London City Airport handled 2.8 million passengers, -0.6% fewer than in 2009.
• At the regional airports – those other than the London airports – traffic contracted by -5% to 83 million passengers. Manchester, the largest regional airport, saw passenger numbers fall by -5% to 17.7 million.
In 2010, the majority of UK airport passengers (122 million) were bound for, or arriving from, geographical Europe – representing a fall of -2.9% from 2009. Within this, the largest absolute increase was in passengers travelling to and from Turkey (up by 557,000, an increase of +11%), with the largest fall in passengers travelling to and from an individual European country being Spain (including the Canary Islands), where numbers fell by -6% (1.7 million), a trend already observed in 2009.
There was a -2.9% (0.6 million) decrease in passengers on flights to and from North America, to 19 million in 2010. Passengers travelling to and from the remaining international destinations (outside Europe and North America) totalled 31 million in 2010, a slight increase of +1.8% on 2009.
In 2010, 20 million passengers took UK domestic flights, representing a fall of -9% (two million) on 2009, demonstrating a reduction in market share of domestic traffic that has been apparent for a number of years, the CAA noted.
A continuing theme from the previous year was the decline in passenger numbers on charter flights, a drop of -6% (1.5 million) to 23 million in 2010 compared with 2009. The reduction in passenger numbers onboard scheduled flights to 188 million was proportionately less than on charter flights, with -3.1% (six million) fewer scheduled passengers in 2010 than in 2009.
During 2010, air transport movements (landings and take-offs of commercial aircraft) at UK airports fell by -5.7% to two million.
