Heathrow hits a new record

BAA has published its December passenger traffic figures and with it the numbers for the whole year.

On the positive side BAA’s airports served 108.5m passengers last year, an increase of 4.4%.  December 2011 was Heathrow’s busiest December ever, 5.5m passengers passing through, giving a total for the 12 months of 69.4m surpassing the 67.9m set in 2007, the previous best ever.  Record passenger numbers accompanied record efficiency levels with the average aircraft operating with 75.2% of its seats occupied.

On a year to year basis every one of  the six airports currently under BAA ownership (Edinburgh is up for sale) saw growth, with the exception of Stansted which, with a 18m passenger throughput, dropped 2.8% making it now only Britain’s fourth busiest gateway after Manchester.

Edinburgh, up for sale, saw record traffic of 9.4m in 2011 beating the previous record set in 2009 (9m).

Results in the international ASQ (American Society for Quality) benchmarking survey showed that 70% of passengers across Heathrow rated their experience at the airport as either ‘excellent’ or ‘very good’, up from 57% in 2008.  Last year represented the best punctuality performance in a decade. www.baa.com

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