Apart from March 2018 when Beast from the East resulted in a 0.1% fall in passenger numbers, it’s the first time in five years that negative growth has been recorded.
A total of 1,309,170 passengers passed through Edinburgh Airport in October – 1% behind the same month last year.
The fall in domestic passengers had a big influence on the overall numbers as Ryanair ended its Stansted route. The route was reduced to four weekly from four daily in June 2019 before ending completely last month.
Apart from March 2018 when Beast from the East resulted in a 0.1% fall in passenger numbers, it’s the first time in five years that negative growth has been recorded.
Gordon Dewar, Chief Executive of Edinburgh Airport said: “We’ve had almost 60 months of continuous growth and it’s unfortunate that we’ve seen this temporary fall in passenger numbers – something we earlier this year predicted would happen"
“It shows us that growth is not guaranteed and it is only possible with hard work and a collaborative approach. The arguments around ADT are well known and we cannot hide the fact that we now have yet another obstacle to work around to deliver the growth that has become expected. Connectivity is important to Scotland and our initial talks with the Scottish Government about bringing the world closer to Scotland have been positive."
“As an airport, we play our part in tourism, business, education, research and culture, so ensuring a sustainable future for the industry is very important. We need to work together to deliver that.”
Domestic market was behind October 2018 following Ryanair’s decision to cut the Stansted route from October 2019.
The negative impact was softened by strong performance on other domestic routes:
- Flybe added more frequencies to London Heathrow (from 4 daily to 6 daily)
- easyJet’s Stansted route had more passengers than last October
- Ryanair started a new route to Derry Londonderry (Nov 18)
International market recorded a +2.0% YoY growth due strong growth in the short-haul segment. These are the reasons for the traffic growth in more detail:
- Ryanair introduced 8 new international routes last winter: Seville, Tallinn, Berlin Schoenefeld, Stockholm Skavsta, Lisbon, Memmingen, Sofia & Riga. Also started 3 new routes this year: Billund, Luxembourg and Bucharest
- Emirates launched a daily service to Dubai in October 2018
- – Qatar increased frequencies from daily to 10x weekly (double daily on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays)
- Delta increased from 5x weekly to daily service to JFK
- Jet2 operated 2 recently launched routes (Corfu and Bodrum)
- Lufthansa started a new route to Munich in December 2018
- Loganair started new routes to Bergen and Stavanger in May 2019
- Great Dane started operating flights to Aalborg in June 2019
- Lauda started operating a new route to Vienna in October 2019
Tatiana is the news coordinator for TravelDailyNews Media Network (traveldailynews.gr, traveldailynews.com and traveldailynews.asia). Her role includes monitoring the hundreds of news sources of TravelDailyNews Media Network and skimming the most important according to our strategy.
She holds a Bachelor's degree in Communication & Mass Media from Panteion University of Political & Social Studies of Athens and she has been editor and editor-in-chief in various economic magazines and newspapers.
