Storms fail to dent airport firm's progress

British airports operator BAA today said hurricanes in the United States and the Caribbean failed to hold back its business last month.

The group said North Atlantic traffic increased by 7.9% in September against the previous year despite the disruption caused by the storms that lashed Florida and other popular destinations.

Overall, the group’s seven UK airports handled 13.1 million passengers in September, up 5.4% against the same month last year.

During the first half of the financial year, passenger numbers increased 7.5% to 77.5 million.

European scheduled markets grew by 8.6% and other long haul expanded by 9.4%, although the European charter market continued to be weak, with passenger numbers falling 5.5%.

Of BAA’s individual airports, Southampton saw the biggest growth during the month, up 18.9% at 154,400 thanks to the continued success of low cost operator Flybe.

Heathrow increased passenger numbers by 3.7% to 5,958,500 while Gatwick grew 6.1% to 3,230,900 and Stansted was up 7.1% at 1,938,400.

The company’s Scottish airports all grew passenger numbers, with Glasgow increasing 8.4% to 883,000, Edinburgh rising 6.6% to 732,300 and Aberdeen growing 4.2% to 243,600.

Cargo tonnage grew 13.4% to 151,000 tonnes and Heathrow’s cargo market was particularly strong for the third consecutive month, with tonnage increasing by 15.9%.

The increases came despite measures taken by British Airways and Virgin to offload the soaring cost of oil on to passengers.

BA doubled a surcharge on long-haul flights after warning that employee and fuel costs were its biggest challenges, despite posting profits of £115m (€167.1m) in the three months to June 30 – up from its Iraq war-related losses of £45m (€65.4m) in 2003.