Record numbers use BAA airports as North Atlantic travel takes off again

BRITISH airports operator BAA said yesterday a record 133.4 million passengers used its seven sites during the last financial year.

The annual figure, which was almost six million higher than a year earlier, included a 10.4% rise in traffic for March at 10.8 million passengers.

Last month’s performance was helped by a weak comparison with a year earlier when confidence was dented by the outbreak of war in Iraq.

Among individual airports, Heathrow experienced an 11.6% improvement in March as the airport benefited from a 16.6% rise in demand for north Atlantic travel. Volumes at Gatwick grew 0.6% despite a 17.6% decline in charter traffic. Stansted continued to experience strong growth as its year-on-year passenger numbers showed a 21% improvement last month. The growth in low-cost travel also benefited Southampton, with a rise of 87%, while Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen airports performed solidly with a combined growth rate of 7.1%.

As well as the recovery in north Atlantic travel, BAA saw long haul routes carry 20% more passengers during March with European scheduled traffic ahead 12.6% across the seven airports. The charter market remained weak last month with a drop of 9% while UK domestic routes gained 6.6%.

Across the financial year, BAA said its performance had been impacted early on by the influence of the Iraq war and the Sars outbreak. However, Heathrow ended the 12-month period with 2.1% more passengers, a performance that took it past the 64 million mark.

Gatwick grew by 1.4% to pass 30 million while Stansted handled 15.9% more passengers to reach 19.4 million. Elsewhere, Edinburgh added 7.2%, Glasgow rose by 3.1% and Southampton lifted by 72.8% to 1.37 million.

Aberdeen was the only airport to experience a year-on-year decline as the downturn in the oil industry caused annual figures to fall 1.6%.

Domestic and European scheduled traffic performed well for the year, up 4.8% and 8.4% respectively, as the boom in low-cost travel continued.

The only market to decline was European charter, down 3.2%.