Heathrow Airport reported today that Easter holidays moving to April saw 5.753m passengers use Heathrow in March 2014 – a fall of -2.8%.

Several international point-to-point routes saw passenger declines, although the aforementioned holiday date change means these statistics are not directly comparable with March 2013.

Nevertheless, traffic for all Heathrow Ltd’s airports also saw Glasgow generate 531,700 passengers (+4.1%); Aberdeen 289,200 (+8.2%; and Southampton 129,100 (+3.7%).

In terms of international route sectors (mostly related to Heathrow traffic) Europea generated traffic of 2,694,200 (-3.3%) in March, followed by North America with 1,253,400 (-2.3%); Asia Pacific 836,500 (-2.7%); Middle East 525,400 (-1.0%); Africa 301,600 (-6.1%); and Latin America 87,300 (+1.9%).

 

EMERGING MARKET PROGRESS
More cheerfully, within emerging markets, Mexico was up 19%, China grew by 11.6% and Turkey was up 7.2%. Cargo traffic was also up and Heathrow T5 also picked up the Skytrax ‘World’s Best Airport Terminal’ award for a third year in a row, whilst Heathrow won the ‘Best Airport for Shopping’ for a fifth time (as reported).

Heathrow also pointed out that March also saw Dubai Airport report higher international passenger numbers than Heathrow over a two-month period for the first time.

Heathrow CEO Colin Matthews – who announced he will be leaving the company when a successor is appointed this year – commented: “Passenger numbers were in line with expectations in March, consistent with the Easter bank holiday moving from March last year to April this year.

 

“Dubai’s announcement that it has overtaken Heathrow in the last two months shows that the UK will soon no longer have the world’s number one airport for international passenger traffic. We want Britain to continue to compete globally against the best hub airports in the world but without a third runway, Heathrow’s comparative decline will make the whole of the UK less attractive to do business.”