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Jim Mason · Guest

Edinburgh catches up as airports take off

CHRISTINE FERGUSON April 14 2004

The Herald, Web version, 14/04/04

PASSENGER traffic through Edinburgh airport is growing at twice the rate of
Glasgow airport, according to the latest annual figures released by
airports operator BAA.

Edinburgh is continuing to narrow the gap with Scotland's busiest airport
with 7.6 million people flying to or from the east coast airport over the
last 12 months, up 7.2% on last year. Glasgow notched up a much smaller
3.1% increase to 8.1 million.

Figures for March also showed more people flew from Edinburgh with 648,000
flying to and from the capital compared to 587,700 from Glasgow. Malcolm
Robertson, corporate affairs director for BAA Scotland, denied that
Edinburgh was being developed at the expense of Glasgow.

He said: "We do not spend any time analysing why one airport is ahead of
another. What is important for us is that Scotland has two extremely well
performing airports in the central belt.

"Our charging policy is absolutely fair and is exactly the same for both
airports.

"Edinburgh has been growing faster over the last two years as it has done
extremely well in developing short haul European services, but Glasgow will
grow strongly in 2004 with new services from airlines like flyglobespan and
Emirates."

Aberdeen was the only one of BAA's seven UK airports to report an annual
fall in traffic with 2.5 million passengers, down 1.6% on the previous year
as a result of the downturn in the oil industry.

However, figures for March for Aberdeen showed a marked reversal of the
recent trend with an 8% increase in traffic, owing to new capacity on
domestic services and strong growth on international routes. Helicopter
traffic at the airport grew for the first time since April 2002, by 4.3%.
Donal Dowds, managing director of BAA Scotland, said: "I am delighted to
see growth at all three of our airports in Scotland, and particularly in
Aberdeen.

"BAA Scotland's commitment to route development has delivered more than 30
new international services to Scotland and the fruits of our efforts are
beginning to impact on passenger numbers. 2004 promises to be an exciting
year of growth, in which BAA's three Scottish airports make a significant
positive contribution to the Scottish economy and tourism industry."
BAA announced last month that it was committing an additional £35m over the
next five years in developing new international air routes from its three
Scottish airports.

Across the UK, BAA said a record 133.4 million passengers used its seven
airports during the last financial year.

The annual figure, which was almost six million higher than a year earlier,
included a 10.4% rise in traffic for March at 10.8 million passengers.

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Adrian Tupper · Guest

Jim Mason <jim.mason (AT) thebairnsukonline (DOT) co.uk> wrote in
news:MPG.1ae6c2c051f22629896e4 (AT) news (DOT) freeserve.com: