UK airports handled 241 million passengers during 2007, according to figures published by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). This represents an increase of 2.4 per cent on 2006. This growth is slower than that seen over the last decade and continues a trend which began in 2005.

During 2007, air transport movements (landings and take-offs of commercial aircraft) at UK airports grew by 1.8 per cent to 2.5 million. At the London airports - Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton and London City - the increase was 2.6 per cent, with the largest increases in both absolute and percentage terms at London City (11,800 more movements, 15.9 per cent) and Luton (4,800 more movements, 5.8 per cent).

Passengers at London airports

The London airports comprised 58 per cent of total UK passenger numbers, compared to 58.2 per cent in 2006. They saw an increase of 2.8 million terminal passengers, or 2.0 per cent more than in 2006.

The biggest growth in passenger numbers at the London airports was at Gatwick, which served a million more passengers in 2007 than in 2006. Heathrow, Luton and London City all handled over half a million more passengers each.
London City saw its fourth consecutive year of double-digit percentage growth: it is now handling over 2 per cent of all London passengers.

Passengers at regional airports

At the regional airports - those other than the London airports - traffic grew by 2.9 per cent to 101 million passengers. More regional airports are developing a greater range of services and there are now nine airports handling more than five million passengers each year (see notes to editors) between them, accounting for nearly one third of all UK passengers, while a further nine airports each handle more than one million passengers annually.

Routes and destinations

Of the UK airport passengers in 2007, the majority (139.0 million) were bound for, or arriving from, geographical Europe – representing an increase of 3.1 per cent from 2006.
Within this, the largest absolute increases were in passengers to and from: Poland (up by 1.0 million, an increase of 30.7 per cent); Italy (up by 0.6 million, an increase of 6.0 per cent); and Spain (up by 0.6 million, an increase of 1.8 per cent).

The largest fall for an individual European country was Ireland, where passenger numbers fell by 0.1 million (a decrease of 0.8 per cent) - this contrasts with high growth in 2006, when Ireland showed a 4.8 per cent increase on 2005.

There were 22.4 million passengers on flights to and from North America, an increase from 21.7 million in 2006, and a reversal of the decline in passengers to and from North America seen in 2006.

In 2007, 25.3 million passengers were on domestic flights . This represents a fall of 1.9 per cent on 2006, and is the only market segment where passenger numbers are not increasing.

Passengers travelling to and from the remaining international destinations (outside of Europe and North America) totalled 30.6 million in 2007, an increase of 5.5 per cent on 2006. The Middle East and Australasia were the regions seeing the largest growth in passenger numbers (0.6 million and 0.2 million respectively). Both of these represent increases of more than 10 per cent since 2006. Between them, these two regions account for nearly a quarter of the passengers between the UK and the non-EU countries excluding North America.

Passenger Numbers by Nationality of Carrier

121.3 million passengers at UK airports travelled on UK scheduled airlines. This was just over half of all the passengers at UK airports and slightly higher than the 2006 proportion - 50.4 per cent compared to 50.1 per cent.

Of the remaining scheduled passengers, 57.7 million travelled on EU airlines, and 29.5 million on non-EU airlines.

Passenger numbers on charter airlines have been declining in recent years, and the 2007 total of 32.2 million represents a decrease of 4.6 per cent on 2006.