BAA says passenger numbers are recovering

Friday, 08 Mar, 2002 0

Last month saw the first increase in passenger numbers through BAA’s seven UK airports since the September 11 terrorist attacks.

Passenger figures increased slightly during February (+0.3%) to 8.2 million. The airport operator said that all the short haul routes saw increases, largely due to competition among the no-frills carriers. Edinburgh (+19.1%), Stansted (+16.4%) and Glasgow (+6.4%) in particular saw strong growth which BAA said was “underpinned” by the low cost scheduled airlines.

Gatwick also began to see the benefits of the arrival of easyJet at the airport with numbers down 10.8% on 2001 figures, a marked improvement on January’s performance which was down 16.4% on the previous year.

North Atlantic travel continued to be below last year’s figures, but BAA said the 7.7% drop was a substantial recovery compared with the 31.3% fall seen in October. Other long haul traffic was down by 1.4% compared to a 16.4% drop in October 2001, a month after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.