Edinburgh and Glasgow airports enjoy busy summers

Edinburgh Airport enjoyed a record breaking summer. Picture: Jane Barlow

Passengers at Scotland’s busiest airport increased by 10.6 per cent in August to nearly 1.04 million compared to last year - the equivalent of filling the city’s Murrayfield stadium 30 times over.

The total was second only to July’s monthly record of almost 1.1m, with the airport growing over the last year by 2.6 per cent to 9.5m annual passengers.

Glasgow’s August total was up by 6 per cent to 746,000.

Edinburgh airport chief executive Gordon Dewar said: “What a summer we’ve had. We were

over the moon to see 1m passengers in July, but to report the same record-breaking

milestone in August is fantastic.

“I also want to recognise the hard work of my team, our airlines, business partners and handling agents throughout this very busy time.

“The ever-increasing popularity of the Edinburgh summer festivals, coupled with the good weather, has obviously continued to attract visitors from all over the world to Scotland’s capital.”

Glasgow airport said more passengers were flying to and from Florida, Dubai, Amsterdam and Poland, while airlines had also added extra flights or larger aircraft to other routes.

Events in Glasgow such as the World Pipe Band Championships and the UDO World Street Dance Championships also helped boost numbers.

They contributed to a June-August passenger total of 2.4 million, up 5.6 per cent on 2012.

Nearly 7.3m used the airport over the last year, an increase of 3.4 per cent on the previous 12 months.

Airport managing director Amanda McMillan said: “We enjoyed an extremely busy summer with more than 125,000 additional passengers using the airport during June, July and August compared to same period last year.

“Not only was it our busiest summer in five years, it was one of our best in terms of operational performance.

“Despite the significant increase in numbers and a host of large scale events, 99.4 per cent of our passengers passed through security in less than ten minutes during the summer months.”