UK airport operating group BAA has released new figures which show a 4.7 million drop in passenger numbers for 2009, compared to the previous year. This 4.1 per cent decrease is linked to a 12 month period in which the recession impacted badly on industry as a whole, in which overseas holidays became less of a certainty, and during which a number of airlines cut back on scheduled services, or ceased operating altogether.

London Stansted Airport was hit hardest: here, passenger levels plummeted by 2.3 million people –a 10 per cent nosedive. Airlines Easyjet and Ryanair are both prime users of London Stansted, but both revised their flight schedules in 2009, and this partly led to Stansted’s underperformance.

UK Airport Passengers 2009

The first six months of 2009 were especially damaging to UK airports in terms of passenger numbers, since the recession was at its deepest, and there was also the prospect of a long and hot summer – at least, that’s what the forecasters were saying. As it turned out, the predicted “barbecue summer” failed to materialise and, as a result, overseas flight bookings picked up between July and December 2009, offsetting the previous half-year to some degree.

BAA’s network of UK airports is now made up of six sites – London Heathrow, Southampton and Stansted airports in the South of the UK, and Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh in the North – and, in all, 106.9 million travellers passed through them in 2009. Gatwick, too, was a part of BAA for the majority of the year, but passed into new hands in December.

Airport Passenger Numbers

One of the six airports, though, witnessed growth in terms of 2009 passenger numbers. At Edinburgh Airport, levels increased by 0.6 per cent to reach nine million.

“2009 was a difficult year for our airline customers”, BAA's chief executive, Colin Matthews, stated. “Towards the end of the year, we saw signs of improvements, particularly at Heathrow, but there are more challenging times ahead in 2010.”

See also:

BAA Reveals Annual Passenger Numbers