BAA passengers up 4.4%; another record month for Heathrow
11.07.11
BAA’s six UK airports handled 9.9m passengers during June, up 4.4% on last year. Heathrow had its busiest June on record, with 6.1m passengers, up 6.3% on last year. However, June 2010 saw some impact from threatened industrial action at BA, and removing the effects of this, its underlying growth was around 3.8%. April and May were also record months for Heathrow, and in the first half of 2011, the airport handled 32.9m passengers; an increase of 9.1% on last year.
All three of BAA's Scottish airports all saw increased passengers last month. The fastest growth was at Aberdeen (up 10.1%), with Edinburgh up by 7.6% and Glasgow 2.6%. June was also a record month for Edinburgh, which has now had four consecutive months of record traffic. Stansted’s passengers were down by 3.3% on last year and Southampton was down 0.8%.
Rising load factors, the proportion of seats filled per plane, was the key driver behind the increase in passengers. Heathrow saw a record June load factor of 79.3% while Stansted saw an increase in the load factor from 81.4% to 84.0%, despite the fall in passengers.
In contrast to the rise in passenger numbers, the air freight market continued to slow as the strong post-recession recovery phase came to an end. In June, cargo traffic was down 1.5% on last year but up by 20% on June 2009.
Strength in North Atlantic passenger traffic has been a key driver of Heathrow’s recent performance, with an increase in flights to US destinations, which include the world’s most popular intercontinental route of Heathrow - New York JFK. Brazil, with its vibrant economy providing significant growth opportunities for UK businesses, was the strongest performing individual market, seeing a 65.4% growth in passengers over June 2010.
An increasing proportion of passengers on long-haul flights at Heathrow are transferring from other services. For May, the last month for which data is available, 36.4% of passengers changed planes and did not leave the airport. BAA said: 'Without transfer passengers to balance the peaks and troughs of local demand, load factors could not be maintained and airlines would find it hard to continue to fly to all but the most popular destinations.'
In the year to the end of June Heathrow had 68.5m passengers, up 5.7% on the previous 12 months, Stansted had 18.6m (down 3.4%), Southampton 1.7m (down 1.8%), Glasgow 6.8m (down 0.5%), Edinburgh 9.1m (up 5.4%) and Aberdeen 2.9m (up 3.1%). In total BAA's UK airports had 107.6m passengers, up 3.4%.
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