Mixed performances for Scottish airports

Edinburgh and Glasgow airports enjoyed bumper traffic last month, but Aberdeen was left trailing due to the downturn in the North Sea.

Glasgow Airport enjoyed its busiest May in seven years. Picture: John Devlin

More than one million passengers passed through Edinburgh Airport in May – an increase of 9.3 per cent on the year before and a record for the month – and chief executive Gordon Dewar hailed the milestone as “phenomenal”.

He added: “Increased capacity on routes to Paris, Basel, Lisbon and Madrid with EasyJet, as well as Qatar Airways increasing their Doha service to daily at the beginning of May and the launch of the new American Airlines service to JFK have all meant more passengers through our doors.”

Meanwhile, Glasgow saw its busiest May in seven years, with passenger numbers soaring 13.3 per cent year-on-year to 785,063.

Managing director Amanda McMillan said: “Our growth in 2015 has been truly unprecedented, reflected in the fact we’ve enjoyed consistent double-digit increases in our passenger numbers every month since November.”

However, Aberdeen’s traffic dropped 8.1 per cent to 300,871 and Carol Benzie, the airport’s managing director, said: “We have seen a reduction in traffic across all three sectors – helicopters, international and domestic – last month due to the impact of the cost efficiencies currently being driven throughout the oil and gas sector.”

With Heathrow and Gatwick waiting to hear which will be chosen as the site for a new runway, both airports also announced record-breaking figures.

Heathrow had its best-ever May this year, with 6.34 million passengers passing through the terminals of the west London airport – a 1.7 per cent rise on the same month last year.

Gatwick also had a record-breaking May, with traffic at the West Sussex airport rising 5.8 per cent to 3.6 million.