Heathrow record year

2012 was a record year for Heathrow, the world’s busiest twin-runway airport, almost 70m passengers passing through, and an increase of 0.9% compared with 2011.  Traffic last year was characterised by higher load factors – at 75.6%, versus 75.2% in 2011 and a record.  There were also more seats per aircraft (197.4 versus 194.8 in 2011).

Heathrow’s performance in 2012 was led by North Atlantic traffic which increased 3.2%.  Strength in services with Brazil, up 21.6% (due to more flights), the Middle East and Central Asia, up 3.4% (due partially to recovery in key markets from the unrest in the region that impacted 2011) and East Asia, up 6.2% (due partly to recovery from 2011’s Japanese tsunami) was offset particularly by weakness in African and Indian traffic, down 5.7% and 3.4% respectively, with airlines reducing or ceasing services.

Heathrow’s European traffic increased modestly, up 0.5%.  However, there were significant variances, reflecting economic conditions, with Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain seeing a collective passenger reduction of 4.5% over the course of 2012.  Greece experienced the largest reduction (-7.3%) followed by Italy (-6.8%).  Offsetting this, Germany’s traffic increased by 2.3% and France’s traffic rose by 0.6%.  Domestic traffic was up slightly, by 0.5%. www.baa.com

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