Scottish Airports Suffer Due to Heathrow Chaos
23rd April 2008
According to statistics, passenger numbers at Scottish airports have dwindled due to the chaos surrounding the opening of Heathrow’s new Terminal Five.
Airport operator BAA has said that the number of people passing through the country’s three main airports had dropped by a significant 2.3% in the last month to 1.58 million. Predictably, flights to London were the worst hit and traffic was down 7.45% on these routes.
Donald Morrison, BAA Scotland spokesperson, said that Terminal 5 was undoubtedly one of the reasons for the drop in travellers, but the troubled terminal was not the only factor. Mr Morrison also noted that bad weather in the South of England was responsible for a number of cancelled flights. He said: “With bad weather and baggage difficulties at Heathrow leading to a number of cancellations to and from Scotland, the drop in passenger numbers was not unexpected.” Indeed, a significant number of British Airways flights between Heathrow and the three Scottish airports were cancelled due to baggage problems at Heathrow, while strong winds had also forced flight cancellations at the beginning of March. In addition to this, BAA noted that Aberdeen’s lower figures could also be attributed to the collapse of City Star Airlines, which offered flights to Norway, as well as fewer North Sea helicopter flights.
Despite a drop in overall travel from Scottish airports, international traffic actually grew by a promising 7.5%. Mr Morrison said that these figures were very encouraging for Scottish airports. He said: “Overall passenger numbers continue to rise and international and long- haul traffic remains buoyant.”
The figures indicated that Edinburgh was the busiest airport in Scotland last month with 720,012 travellers, which was a 1% increase on March last year. In comparison, overall passenger numbers at Aberdeen and Glasgow airport fell. Glasgow Airport had 602,645 visitors, which was down 4.6% on their figures for March last year, while passenger numbers at Aberdeen dropped to 262,181, which was 5.8% less than the previous March.
Source:
Glasgow Herald
The Scotsman