Top flight: Edinburgh leads the way for BAA

Published on Tuesday 10 May 2011 21:41

EDINBURGH has continued to outperform BAA's other airports, with a 16.7 per cent rise in passenger numbers since the start of the year as more routes led to its busiest ever April.

Nearly 2.7 million travellers have passed through the capital's airport so far this year, with the group's sites in Aberdeen and Glasgow also posting greater growth this year than those south of the Border.

Edinburgh enjoyed a 43.9 per cent jump in passenger numbers in April alone, up to 776,000, following the late fall of Easter, the royal wedding and easier comparisons with April 2010, when the Icelandic ash cloud blanketed Europe.

A spokesman for Edinburgh Airport said: "We've had our busiest April and a lot of that has been down to the Easter holiday and the way the holidays fell.

"However, that aside, we've added 20 flights this year so the choice from Edinburgh is greater than last year and passengers are taking advantage of that."

Aberdeen's passengers figures were up 33.2 per cent year-on-year in April to 247,000, taking its 2011 total so far to 902,000, a rise of 13.5 per cent.

The number of travellers using Glasgow Airport increased by 27.1 per cent to 513,000 last month, giving a total for the year to date of 1.8 million, up 10.1 per cent.

BAA has been ordered to sell either Edinburgh or Glasgow airport after losing a long-running battle in March with the Competition Commission.

Overall, BAA's six UK airports handled 9.1 million passengers in April - more than 31 per cent up on the same month last year. Heathrow also had its busiest-ever April last month and handled more than 5.8 million passengers, up 3.2 per cent.