Business Travel Boosts BAA Passenger Traffic

British Airports Authority (BAA) posted an increase of 3.4 percent in total passenger traffic for the month of October, largely due to recovery in the business travel segment. BAA, UK’s biggest airports operator, announced that its six airports collectively handled 9.75 million passengers in the month, an increase of 318,000 air travellers. The surge in the numbers can also be attributed to the 1.2% increase in the number of flights.The London Heathrow Airport reported an increase of 6% in its flight traffic while a 1% increase in the passenger load factors. The London’s chief gateway posted an increase of 7.2% in passenger figures which is up by 410,000 to 6.1 million. BAA is hopeful that a 10.6% increase in Heathrow’s European travel is an heartening indicator that the continent is slowly but surely recovering from one of the history’s biggest economic depressions in the region. There has been a major rise in the number of continental travellers from the London Heathrow Airport as the figures swelled by 221,000 to 2.28 million passengers. The biggest gainers include key routes like Geneva (59.9% rise), Milan (30.1% rise), Moscow (27.5% rise) and Berlin (25.6% rise).

BAA noted the International Monetary Fund’s last month statement where it stated that the recovery in Europe was “continuing” with the region’s economy set to expand at an yearly rate of 2.3% this year and 2.2% in 2011.

Long-haul flights between LHR and China-Hong Kong rose by 16.1%, up by 23,000 to 173,000. It is considered as a major development given the fact that the London hub serves only two destinations in China as compared to three from Paris, four from Frankfurt and five from Amsterdam.

Long-haul trips between different BAA airports and North America increased by 7.5%, while other long-haul flights spiralled by 3.2%, up 56,000 to 1.84 million.

However, it must be noted that air passenger duty (APD) has been increased since last week and traffic to such routes may be affected. Travellers who use long haul flights from UK may like to use other European hub in order to avoid the tax.

Among BAA’s other airports, Edinburgh posted an increase of 3.5% to 854,000, Southampton climbed up by 1.0% to 157,000 as European travel boosted figures across the cluster.

Passenger figures in Stansted saw a fall of 3.1% to 1.72 million indicating towards a slump in leisure traffic. Glasgow and Aberdeen also continued to experience shrinking traffic. Glasgow is down by 7.4% to 662,000 while Aberdeen plummeted 5% to 264,000.

Chief Executive of BAA, Colin Matthews expressed his satisfaction and stated in the company’s press release, “Passenger growth is good for the economy with thousands of people across the country employed in aviation, international trade and tourism. We are continuing with our £5 billion Heathrow investment programme – the biggest private investment project in the UK – providing thousands of jobs as we modernise facilities to improve everyone’s experience of the airport.

“The continued strength of Heathrow reflects an upturn in global economic activity. Low sterling and interest rates make the UK a competitive place to do business. However, government spending cuts, a sharp increase in air passenger duty and an imminent VAT rise are weakening the prospects for in-bound tourism and British leisure travel.” Mr Matthews added in the release.

Gatwick too announced its most recent passenger figures with the number of travellers passing through the West Sussex airport increasing by 0.8% to 2.85 million. Individuals flying on European scheduled services rose 4.2%, with North Atlantic traffic escalating 9.7%.

However, Gatwick’s European charter traffic plunged 12.3% in the last month as compared with October 2009.