Britain's major airports including Heathrow and Gatwick have been feeling the effects of the global

Oct 24, 2008
Airport operator BAA handled 13.3 million passengers at its UK seven airports this September, 5% fewer than in September 2007.

A total of 113.4 million passengers used the airports - which include Heathrow and Gatwick - in the first nine months of this year, down 1.4%.

Partly because of the collapse of UK carrier XL Airways, European charter airline traffic dipped 12.6% last month.

The number of passengers on north Atlantic routes fell 6.8%, with other long-haul route traffic down 6%.

The smallest drop was in the number of people on scheduled European flights. These were down only 2.2%.

With more airlines now able to fly to the US from Heathrow, north Atlantic traffic there rose 9.6% last month compared with September 2007.

Despite this, overall passenger numbers at Heathrow fell by 3.6%, Gatwick by 6.8% and Stansted by 4.7%.

Southampton airport numbers dropped 4%, Glasgow 11%, Edinburgh 2.9% and Aberdeen 4.2%.

Glasgow was hit by the demise of a second carrier, Zoom, as well as XL.

Source: Sky News