Passenger numbers at BAA’s UK airports in April fell by 1.6% year-on-year to 12.2 million despite a 1.6% increase in air traffic.
The main areas of decline were European charter traffic, which fell by 13.8%, and North Atlantic traffic, which dipped 2.1%. Domestic and Irish Republic traffic fell by 2.6% and 7.1% respectively.
Bucking the downward trend were European scheduled traffic, up 0.1%, and other long haul traffic, which grew by 1.1%.
Of the airports the biggest individual losers in April were Stansted (down 3.4%) and Heathrow (down 2.5%), while passenger numbers at Aberdeen and Edinburgh grew by 8.2% and 3.6% respectively.