BAA reports bumper August
BAA has experienced its busiest ever month this August, with 13.7 million passengers travelling through its seven UK airports. That’s an increase of 3.6% on the same period 12 months ago, suggesting that people have forgotten the problems that hampered passenger figures earlier in the year.
The SARS outbreak in South-East Asia was a major blow to long-haul carriers between, and the war in Iraq also raised fears of increased terrorist threat.
But despite the disruption caused by BA industrial disputes at Heathrow in July, and the recent concerns about potential attacks on US and UK carriers – highlighted by BA’s short-lived decision to suspend flights to Saudi Arabia – the public seems to have regained confidence in air travel.
BAA has revealed that low-cost carriers continued to lead the sector, with a 9.5% increase in European Scheduled traffic. And smaller hubs that act as bases for the budget airlines, such as Stansted, showed the best results for the month on the back of it.
However, there was also a 3% increase in traffic for full-service carriers operating in the same market.
The medium-term trend of a decline in North Atlantic travel continued, with August down 1.1% on last year, but the disparity was lower than previous months. The long-haul passenger numbers were over 3.5% higher overall.
