600 flights cancelled at Heathrow in March
[9th April 2008]
Passenger numbers at Heathrow airport were down by 50,000 in March compared to the previous year as problems at Terminal 5 contributed to 600 flight cancellations.
Airport operator BAA maintains that around half of the 600 cancellations were caused by severe crosswinds at the airport on the 10th and 12th of March, with the remainder due to the baggage handling problems that led to chaos at T5.
However, the majority of flight cancellations at Terminal 5 have been in April so it will be interesting to see how these affect the passenger figures for Heathrow this month.
In contrast to Heathrow, Gatwick airport experienced strong growth in passenger numbers, up by 8.1% compared to March last year helped by strong growth in European scheduled and charter flights. But BAA’s other London airport, Stansted, also saw a decrease in passengers, down by 0.3%.
There was a similar downward trend in Scotland, where passenger numbers fell by 4.6% at Glasgow airport and by 5.8% at Aberdeen airport. However, Edinburgh bucked the trend as it consolidated its position as Scotland’s most popular airport with an increase of 1%.
BAA’s other UK airport, the smaller regional airport at Southampton, also saw a healthy rise in passengers, up by 5.4% in March compared to the same period last year.
BAA believes that the earlier Easter holiday this year did not inflate passenger numbers in March. “Although the Easter Bank Holidays occurred in March as opposed to April in 2007, it is expected that the bulk of the travel associated with Easter will coincide with the school holidays which, in most of the country, fall in April,” the airport operator says in its press statement.
Domestic flights were worst hit by flight cancellations and as a result saw a decline of 6% in passenger numbers. But European scheduled traffic was up by 3%, North Atlantic traffic by 0.8% and other long haul routes by 1.9%.
Written by: Nick Purdom
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