Passenger numbers fall again at Southampton airport (From Daily Echo)

Passenger numbers fall again at Southampton airport

1:43pm Friday 11th May 2012 in Business By Matt Smith , Politics and business reporter

PASSENGER numbers at Southampton Airport fell 3.1 per cent last month.

A total of 139,260 million passengers passed through the airport's terminals in April, down from 143,672 in the same month last year.

Combining the March and April 2012 figures to get over the complication of different dates for Easter, Southampton handled 2.4 per cent fewer passengers in March/April this year than in the same two months last year.

However, passenger numbers at Southampton Airport for the past 12 months are up 1.2 per cent to 1.76m. The The airport is still some way behind the record 2 million passengers it welcomed in 2007 and 2008, before the economic downturn.

Monthly passenger numbers peaked at 204,359 in August 2007, just before the credit crunch hit.

Figures across BAA's six airports, which include Heathrow, rose 0.1 per cent to almost 9.09 million, compared to April last year.

A total of 5.8 million passengers passed through Heathrow last month, fractionally up on the April 2011 figure.

Stansted airport handled 2.7 per cent fewer passengers last month than in April 2011, while Edinburgh airport numbers fell 1.1 per cent. Aberdeen rose 11 per cent and Glasgow was up 6.7 per cent.

A Southampton Airport spokeswoman said: "2012 has been a mixed year for Southampton so far with some months being in growth and others being down.

"However, we anticipate that the year will be overall very similar to last year."

"Several new routes have been announced for the summer including Barcelona which starts June 23, and three new French destinations: Tours starting this Wed with Flybe and Lyon and Nantes starting June 30 with Air France."