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Airport Passengers Poised to Exceed One Million a Month

Posted on: Thursday, 11 August 2005, 18:00 CDT

MORE than a million passengers a month are set to pass through Edinburgh Airport within a year as it continues to lay on extra services.

Holidaymakers jetting off to the sun, and celebrities and delegates flying in for the G8 summit at Gleneagles all helped make July the airport's busiest ever.

A host of new services are to be launched in the coming months to popular European short-break destinations, which are set to boost numbers even further.

Airport owner BAA is also keen to see the start of flights to Germany ahead of next summer's World Cup. Nearly 30,000 passengers passed through Edinburgh Airport's gates every day in July - making a total for the whole month of almost 850,000.

Passenger numbers are now expected to break the one million a month barrier within months.

The airport is currently negotiating with several airlines to offer both increased flights to existing destinations and a host of new services. BAA is concentrating particularly on the booming market for European breaks.

New services to Oslo, Budapest and Tallinn in Estonia are in the pipeline.

BAA's managing director, Richard Jeffrey, said he was delighted by the number of passengers using the airport.

"The Live 8 concert and the G8 Summit attracted thousands of additional visitors to Edinburgh," he said. "Edinburgh Airport is proud to have played its part in showcasing Scotland to the many international visitors who used our airport as their gateway into Scotland and helped make last month our busiest ever."

Operator BAA said the airport handled 845,237 passengers last month, an increase of 6.2 per cent on the same time last year.

Air industry sources said the airport expected to see passenger numbers continue to grow.

One aviation expert said: "Edinburgh is surpassing all the speculation on passenger growth, and if it continues at the present rate, the airport could hit the million mark at Christmas, although next summer is perhaps more likely."

Last month, the start of the school holidays helped to drive the growth, with traditional sun spots such as Alicante, Tenerife and Palma all attracting thousands of holidaymakers. Short breaks to European cities and direct flights to New York also proved popular.

The number of people flying abroad grew by 8.2 per cent, while the number of domestic passengers also increased.

Edinburgh Airport is likely to overtake Glasgow in the coming years, with the volume of passengers flying to and from the Capital expected to more than treble by 2030, rising to 26m.

Source: Evening News; Edinburgh (UK)

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