Scots airports reach new high

New figures from airport operator BAA show that 2,212,672 passengers used Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen airports in July, an increase of almost 1 per cent on the same month last year.

Glasgow suffered a 6.4 per cent fall in passengers on the year-earlier period, in the wake of the 30 June attack, but was still the busiest airport in Scotland last month, handling some 970,400 passengers. On the day after the attack, the airport handled just 14,206 passengers - compared with a seasonal daily average of 33,400.

That left Glasgow trailing Edinburgh for the 12 months to the end of July, with some 8,797,400 passengers against 8,815,000 at its east coast counterpart.

The Scottish numbers emerged as BAA said it had handled a record 15.1 million passengers across its seven UK airports last month - a 0.2 per cent rise on the July 2006 total.

This was despite a 1.7 per cent dip in traffic at Heathrow, where passenger complaints have soared. Following last year's heightened security alerts, new measures that restrict hand luggage and scrutinise passengers have caused misery and long queues at Britain's busiest airport.

BAA Scotland said passenger numbers at Edinburgh rose 6.3 per cent during July to 916,690, a fresh monthly high for the Scottish capital.

Business was boosted by a 23.6 per cent rise in international traffic as holidaymakers headed abroad. New services to Milan, Madrid, Stockholm and Zurich were among the routes said to be performing particularly strongly.

At Aberdeen, just over 325,000 travellers passed through the terminal, a 10.6 per cent rise on a year ago. In the 12 months to July, Aberdeen Airport handled 3.4 million passengers, up 10.2 per cent on the previous year.

BAA, which is owned by Spanish construction group Ferrovial, could face a competition investigation into its ownership of the three biggest airports in the south-east of England - Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted.