The number of passengers using Britain's main airports fell by 7.3 per cent in May compared to the same month last year, as the recession and the weakness of sterling continued to hit overseas travel. BAA, which operates seven UK airports, said the fall in the number of passengers it handled to 11.8 million was in line with the trends it had seen since December, and that while demand remained weak, patterns had not changed materially.

Heathrow reported a smaller drop of 3.9 per cent, which BAA said demonstrated "the resilience and importance of Britain's international hub airport". It said that Gatwick had seen an improvement in recent trends, falling by 6.5 per cent, as a stronger summer schedule and the Open Skies agreement between the EU and US impacted positively. The worst performing airport was Stansted, where traffic fell by 18.5 per cent as some airlines continued to cut capacity in response to tough economic conditions.

Read the full article in The Times.


Inexorably downwards.

And still the spinmeisters will say "99% full".