Difficult winter ahead for airline industry

As passenger numbers continue to fall the airline industry is likely to have a difficult winter season financially, the main airport operator in Scotland, BAA, is warning.

BAA Scotland reported that during October, 1.9 million passengers were handled by its airports at Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow, which represents a decline of 6.1 per cent over the same month in 2007.

A BAA spokesman has cited the credit crunch as the being responsible for the drop in passenger demand for seats, and noted that domestic routes have been the hardest hit.

“There is no doubt the aviation industry is feeling the pinch as the credit crunch continues to impact on consumer demand, and this winter will be a tough period for airlines and airports around the UK,” the spokesman said.

He added: “The challenge is to weather the downturn. We are confident the market will recover and in the meantime we continue to work with our airlines to make the most of the 120 destinations available from our three Scottish airports.”

Edinburgh was BAA’s busiest airport during October, handling more than 794,000 passengers, although this was a decline of 3.2 per cent over October of last year.

At Glasgow, passenger traffic dropped by 9.1 per cent, down to approximately 787,000 passengers. Aberdeen handled around 302,000 passengers, which was a decrease of 5.3 per cent as compared with the same month last year.

Thanks to news.bbc.co.uk for the above quotes, for more information on this article please visit their website.

www.baa.com