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15 Aug, 2012

Key British Airports report 4.1% fall in July traffic, partly due to Olympics

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London, 14 August 2012 (BAA media release) – 9.6m passengers passed through BAA’s five airports in July 2012, down 4.1% on July 2011. This included a drop of 4.4% at Heathrow to 6.6m passengers.

The drop was more pronounced in the second half of the month and it is likely that the Olympics played a part, with UK passengers staying at home as well as non-Olympic visitors from overseas choosing to defer their journeys.

Those that chose to travel enjoyed a good experience at Heathrow, with a record breaking month for customer satisfaction. The airport’s monthly survey asks passengers to rate their experience on a scale of 1-5, where 5 is excellent and 4 very good. In July, arrivals scored a record 4.3. Departures scored 4.22, the second highest departures score ever and a record for July.

Within the Heathrow figures, domestic traffic saw an increase of 1.2% compared with last year, whilst European scheduled traffic, significantly affected by the Olympics, fell 6.6%. North Atlantic traffic remained almost unchanged (+0.1%), whilst other long haul routes had a collective decline of 6.3%. Within that passenger numbers to and from India dropped 11% but Brazil saw an increase of 15% and China 3.4%.

At Stansted passenger numbers were down 5.3% compared with July 2011, whilst Glasgow saw numbers fall 0.5% and Southampton 9.5%. Aberdeen though saw an increase in passenger numbers of 4.4% compared with July 2011, which meant a combined increase of 0.9% across the Scottish airports.

The amount of cargo carried across the group’s five airports was up 0.6% on the same month last year.

BAA Chief Executive, Colin Matthews, said: “We are proud to have played our part in giving the very best welcome to London 2012 to athletes and visitors alike.  Seven years of hard work and planning, the warmth and enthusiasm of more than a thousand volunteers and additional Border Force staff produced our strongest ever passenger satisfaction scores.”

View traffic statistics for BAA airports in July 2012 (51KB PDF)