Passengers looking for discount flights from Scottish airports such as Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow found what they were looking for in August, as it is revealed that passenger figures increased.
BAA, the company that manages Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow airports reported a rise in passenger numbers at all three airports in August. Edinburgh Airport experienced a 3 per cent rise in passenger numbers in August, the sixth consecutive record month for the air field. Meanwhile, passenger numbers grew by 5.5 per cent at Glasgow Airport and 6.7 per cent at Aberdeen Airport, compared to August 2010.
A number of new routes are being launched from Scottish airports. Lufthansa announced earlier this year that it is to fly from Aberdeen to Frankfurt from 30 October and Ryanair is reportedly keen to expand its presence at Glasgow Airport.
In total BAA’s UK airports handled 10.7 million passengers in August, an increase of 0.2 per cent on the same month last year. Of this figure 6.6 million accounted for passengers who flew to or from London Heathrow. Southampton Airport saw a 2.4 per cent rise in passenger numbers in August, too.
Popular no-friller hub London Stansted was the only BAA airport to experience a drop in traffic, down by 5.1 per cent on August 2010. Of the available flights from Stansted, voted the world’s best airport for budget flights by more than 11 million people in the Skytrax World Airport Awards 2011, an impressive 89.3 per cent of all seats in August were full.
“Together with our airline customers, we served a record number of passengers this summer,” said Colin Matthews, BAA’s Chief Executive.
“Our passengers tell us we are delivering a better service for them and we are investing £1 billion a year in new passenger facilities.”
