Festive crush false dawn at Heathrow
BRITAIN'S airports had their busiest-ever Christmas, but figures for the year show its two major international hubs, Heathrow and Gatwick, are still down on passenger records set in 2000.
Statistics from BAA showed today its seven airports in the UK handled more than 10m passengers in December, a rise of 6.2% and good news for a group which makes much of its money from passenger spending in airport shopping malls.
The annualised figures show BAA handled a record 131m passengers, growth of 3.6%.
But that masked flat volumes at Heathrow and Gatwick compared with storming growth at Stansted, the Essex airport which the Government has chosen for expansion and a second runway.
The 63m passengers who went through Heathrow in 2003 is down 1.6% on the 2000 peak, while Gatwick's near-30m represents a 6% shortfall. Over the same period, Stansted passenger numbers soared by more than half to 18.7m.
The mix of passengers has also changed dramatically in the decade so far. The rise of budget airlines has seen a 22% increase in domestic and European scheduled flights, now accounting for nearly three-fifths of BAA's customers.
Holidaymaker numbers on European charter airlines, however, are fairly flat while passenger volumes flying the North Atlantic are down 12% from their peak.
