Airport hit by decline in passenger levels
PASSENGER numbers at Birmingham International Airport fell more than 4% last month, latest figures have shown.
The airport has blamed the fragile nature of the economy for the decline. Already this summer two travel firms – including Birmingham-based Sun4U – have collapsed, while in the last fortnight Kiss Flights has also gone out of business.
The new figures released by the airport show that in July, the facility handled 928,283 travellers through its two terminals, including 664,311 scheduled passengers and 263,972 charter passengers.
Paul Kehoe, BIA’s Chief Executive Officer, commented: “Given the fragile nature of the current economic recovery it is perhaps unsurprising that passenger numbers during July were down 4.2% year-on-year.
“However, Birmingham Airport continues to fare better than a number of other UK airports and the momentum continues to build for Birmingham to be seen as a viable alternative for airports in the over-heated south east.”
He said that having recently been voted the UK’s top airport by passengers, the facility was now trying to attract customers who may not have used the airport before.
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During July, the airport said significant growth was achieved on scheduled flights to destinations such as Arrecife (+144.2%), Tehran (+99.5%), Tenerife (+75.1%), Ibiza (+63.6%), Bydgoszcz (+60.6%), Gerona (+58.4%), Toulouse (+43.2%), Milan (+37.5%), Cork (+35.2%), Faro (+34%), Bergerac (+30.1%), Lyon (+28.5%), Brest (+27.1%), Split (+26.2%), Hamburg (+24.4%), Dusseldorf (+24.1%), Stuttgart (+23.6%), Larnaca (+23.2%), Frankfurt (+19.9%), Toronto (+19.8%), Bratislava (+18.7%), Hanover (+16.7%), Dubai (+15.4%), Zurich (+14.7%), Guernsey (+11.9%), Islamabad (+11.7%) and Munich (+11.1%).
Charter traffic which experienced growth included Dominican Republic (+95.5%), Austria (+33%), Turkey (+30.1%), Croatia (+22.5%), Canada (+21.4%), Italy (+18.6%), Jamaica (+12.1%) and Bulgaria (+11.5%).
Scheduled traffic accounted for 71.6% of the total passenger traffic in July, whilst charter passengers made up the remaining 28.4%.
