September 2012 traffic figures – BAA’s airports

Record passenger numbers at Heathrow.

Heathrow saw 6.3 million passengers pass through its terminals, a record for September and up 0.6% on the same month last year.

European scheduled traffic overall was up 0.2%. Within that passenger numbers to and from Spain were up 6.2%, but Greece and Portugal both saw their traffic fall 4.8%. North Atlantic traffic continued to perform well, up 4.5% on last September. Brazil and China passenger numbers increased 14% and 5.9% respectively whilst traffic to and from India fell 7%.

Overall, nearly 9.2m passengers passed through BAA’s five airports in September 2012, the same as September 2011 and an improvement on the falls of 4.1% in July and 2.0% in August.

At Stansted, passenger numbers were down 4.0% compared with September 2011, whilst traffic through Southampton declined 4.4%.

Traffic through Aberdeen was up 1.4% and Glasgow was up 5.6%, resulting in a total increase at the Scottish airports of 4.4%.

Cargo performed well, up 2.5% across the group with a 1.7% rise at Heathrow and a 5.2% increase at Stansted.

BAA Chief Executive Colin Matthews said: “Heathrow saw record passenger numbers in September. Traffic to and from the BRIC economies, other than India, demonstrates the on-going importance of hub capacity to connect the UK to growth markets. The Davies Commission must rigorously and objectively assess every option to meet our country’s economic needs.”

View traffic statistics tables for September 2012 (103KB PDF)