Disputes, Jubilee holiday wing BAA

12 April 2012

AIRPORTS operator BAA has blamed air traffic control disputes and the Jubilee holiday weekend for a dip in passenger numbers. The company's seven UK airports, including Heathrow and Gatwick, handled 11.6m passengers in June, a drop of 1.4% on the same month last year.

BAA said traffic had been hurt by European air traffic control disputes and the loss of business travel due to the extended holiday. The figures buck the recent upward trend as airports look to recover from the impact of the 11 September terrorist attacks and the foot-and-mouth outbreak.

The weakest sector during June continued to be the North Atlantic market, with a 9.4% fall, while other long haul services were down 3%. Domestic traffic remained strong, up 5.3% because of the continued growth of low-cost airlines, while the extra Bank Holiday also helped European charter traffic lift 4.1% on a year earlier.

But Irish traffic was down 1.1% because of the recent Aer Lingus pilots' strike, while European scheduled traffic was off 2.4% in the wake of Europe-wide and national air traffic control disputes.

Among individual airports, low-cost airline base Stansted continued its recent growth, with a 11.9% surge in passenger numbers. Traffic at Edinburgh was also 8% higher, while Glasgow closely followed with a 5.2% improvement. However, numbers at Heathrow dipped by 1.8%, with Gatwick down 8.6%, Aberdeen off 4.6% and Southampton 11.4% lower.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in