Britons stayed at home and tourists stayed away to avoid the Olympics, so Heathrow saw the number of fliers passing through its baggage halls fall 4.4% to 6.6 million this July compared with last.
Heathrow’s passengers numbers fell faster in the second half of the month as the Games approached, owner BAA admitted. But it reckons numbers will recover later in the year as overseas visitors postpone rather than cancel their journeys.
BAA trumpeted the fact that July was “a record-breaking month for customer satisfaction”, according to its regular passenger survey.
This, however, was likely to be because the massive, and well-publicised, queues for immigration seen in the previous month cleared up due to the introduction of more Borders Agency staff for the Games.
The biggest fall in demand at Heathrow was from long-haul routes to anywhere but the US, which saw passenger numbers unchanged. Travel to and from India was down 11%, while European scheduled traffic was down 6.6%.
Yesterday was one of the fullest days in Heathrow’s history, with about 116,000 athletes and spectators departing from the world’s busiest airport. on a normal day 95,000 fly out of Heathrow.
BAA’s chief executive Colin Matthews said: “We are proud to have played our part in giving the very best welcome to London 2012 to athletes and visitors alike.”
Rival Gatwick, which is owned by infrastructure fund GIP, saw traffic drop by just 4000 to 3.6 million in the month, as the airport hosted new carriers that hadn’t moved in last July.
