The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has published results from the 2009 Air Passenger Survey, which questioned over 200,000 departing air passengers about their travel patterns at four London airports (Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, and Luton), five Scottish airports (Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness, Aberdeen and Prestwick) as well as at Durham Tees Valley, Newcastle and Manchester airports…
The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has published results from the 2009 Air Passenger Survey, which questioned over 200,000 departing air passengers about their travel patterns at four London airports (Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, and Luton), five Scottish airports (Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness, Aberdeen and Prestwick) as well as at Durham Tees Valley, Newcastle and Manchester airports.
Sample results from the 2009 survey:
Following drops in average passenger income between 2007 and 2008 at most airports surveyed, 2009 showed average incomes increasing for business and leisure passengers at Gatwick, Heathrow and Luton, and for leisure passengers at Manchester and Stansted.
However, the increases to average income mainly affected non-UK passengers, as 2009’s fall in the value of sterling against the euro, the dollar, and other key currencies increased the spending power of such passengers in the UK. Rising average incomes for UK residents were mainly associated with lower passenger numbers, indicating that there was a higher proportion of lower income passengers amongst those now not flying.
The highest increase in average annual income for leisure passengers between 2008 and 2009 was at Stansted. This was also one of only two airports, with Manchester, to see its business passengers’ income fall.
Newcastle Airport’s leisure passengers recorded the lowest average annual income at £37,663, whereas business passengers at Heathrow had the highest average income, at £79,335 a year.
Of passengers not changing planes at Heathrow, for the second year running the proportion travelling on business trips has dropped, this time from 37.2 per cent to 31.5 per cent. Gatwick by contrast saw its proportion of such business passengers increase from 16.2 per cent in 2008 to 18.2 per cent in 2009.
The 2009 survey also saw for the first time a limited sample of respondents (at Stansted and Glasgow airports) asked about their views on the environment. The survey found that in total 60 per cent of people surveyed said they understood the concept of carbon offsetting, but only six per cent had actually offset the flight they were taking. More respondents at Glasgow were aware of offsetting (72 per cent) than at Stansted (56 per cent), but marginally more people actually offset at Stansted. 11 per cent of respondents said that over the year they had consciously chosen to travel by air less to reduce their environmental impact. The CAA is undertaking further research in the area of customer attitudes to the environmental impacts of flying.
At 40.3 per cent, Heathrow had the highest proportion of leisure passengers in the A/B social group, whereas Inverness had the lowest at 19.8 per cent. However both Luton (67.3 per cent) and Edinburgh (65.5 per cent) had a higher proportion of A/B business passengers than Heathrow (64.3 per cent).
The largest income gap at an airport was recorded at Durham Tees Valley, where business passengers had an annual average income of £69,863, in contrast to the leisure passengers £44,063: which was the second lowest behind Newcastle.
Stansted had the most users of public transport of all surveyed airports (at 47.3 per cent), while Durham Tees Valley had the least at 1.3 per cent.
Aberdeen had a higher proportion of passengers travelling alone (78.2 per cent), while Manchester had the fewest at 34.6 per cent. Manchester also had the highest proportion of passengers travelling in groups of five or more people (3.9 per cent), Gatwick was second highest with 3.3 per cent.
Heathrow had a greater proportion of travellers taking trips lasting more than four weeks at 7.6 per cent, while Luton saw the lowest proportion at 1.5 per cent.
The highest proportion of passengers taking an average holiday length trip of two weeks was recorded at Manchester, with a third of passengers. The lowest proportion of this typical leisure trip was recorded at Inverness with 13.3 per cent.
The largest UK passenger family sizes were found at Prestwick, where 8.4 per cent of respondees had families with five or more people, whereas at Heathrow, 29.3 per cent were singletons.
Newcastle had the highest proportion of flyers over the age of 74, at 3.5 per cent.
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
