European passengers boost UK airports

Increased demand for trips to Europe ensured airports operator BAA delivered another rise in passenger numbers during April.

The owner of Heathrow and Gatwick Airports handled a total of 12.4 million passengers in the month, a gain of 7.8% as all markets except UK domestic, which dropped 1.3%, recorded strong growth.

European scheduled traffic was up 10.8%, while European charter business showed a rise of 4.2%.

The performance was helped by the later timing of Easter, although March and April combined still showed an increase of 3.2% on a year earlier.

Of the individual airports, Stansted saw the largest gain in demand with a rise of 16.2% in April.

Gatwick was up 12.5% and Aberdeen recorded its fifth successive double-digit increase at 10%.

Southampton was up 10.5%, while Heathrow’s traffic rose 4.3% to 5.8 million and Glasgow and Edinburgh showed more modest rises of 2.2% and 1.7% respectively.

BAA is currently looked in a takeover battle as it attempts to thwart a hostile £8.75bn (€12.8bn) takeover offer from a consortium led by Spanish infrastructure company Ferrovial.