Gatwick sees slight increase in passengers

News at Gatwick 18/04/2011

BA introduces more cheap Tampa flights from Gatwick : April 2011 : Ryanair launches reserved seating

Passengers rose slightly at Gatwick airport last month.

The latest figures show that Gatwick Airport enjoyed a modest but useful increase in passenger numbers last month. The 1.4-per-cent increase, though far short of the performances shown by several other BAA airports, was still better than that seen at Stansted or Southampton.

Altogether, BAA’s six airports handled 8.3 million passengers last month. This represents an increase of 0.9 per cent from March of last year.

The best performers were Heathrow airport and the three Scottish airports owned by BAA. This repeated a pattern seen a year earlier, when the same airports benefited from strike action at British Airways.

Last month, passengers numbers at Heathrow were up by 2.3 per cent, year-on-year. Aberdeen’s performance rose by 8.6 per cent, Edinburgh was up by 7.2 per cent and Glasgow’s passenger numbers increased by 2.4 per cent.

Meanwhile, Stansted Airport suffered a 7.4-per-cent collapse in travellers. Southampton, however, shed 8.7 per cent of passengers, compared to 2010.

It will be much more challenging to compare April’s figures with those of last year, however. This month last year, air travel was decimated by the Icelandic ash cloud and this year, the entire blockbuster Easter holiday falls in April.

Travel figures will probably also be distorted this month because of the Royal Wedding, which takes place on 29 April. Gatwick airport saw 1.4 per cent more passengers this March than it did last.

Gatwick airport is no longer owned by BAA, however. BAA was forced by regulators to sell the airport, which was bought by Global Infrastructure Partners, a US-based consortium of investors.

BA introduces more cheap Tampa flights from Gatwick : April 2011 : Ryanair launches reserved seating

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