Glasgow, Scotland’s second busiest airport, has announced its busiest June for five years, as passenger numbers increased by 5.4 percent to nearly 775,000 compared to 2012.
The most popular routes included those to sunspots in the Balearics, Canary Islands, Portugal and Turkey. Long haul routes including Virgin Atlantic’s direct flights to Florida and Canadian Affair’s Toronto service, as well as Emirates double daily service to Dubai, also saw extra passengers last month.
Amanda McMillan, managing director of Glasgow Airport, said: ‘It really is an exciting time for Glasgow Airport and it’s particularly pleasing to follow the unveiling of our new logo and the launch of the Dreamliner’s first Scottish flight [to Mexico on Monday] with news of further passenger growth.’
The airport reported a strong demand for domestic traffic, which grew by 5.7 percent, and the beginning of the busy summer getaway contributed to a 5.2 percent increase in international traffic. Over 113,000 people travelled through the airport during the last weekend of June alone.
The figures come two days after Edinburgh airport revealed it had registered a record June, with its passenger total up by 8.4 percent to nearly 957,000. Glasgow has been reporting consistent passenger growth since January 2011, while Edinburgh, Scotland’s busiest airport, only returned to growth two months ago after a year of instability.
On July 10, Glasgow Airport reached a significant milestone in its GBP17 million investment programme, with the unveiling of its new look logo. The launch of the logo and accompanying strap line – Proud to Serve Scotland – is a key part of the airport’s extensive preparations for the 2014 Commonwealth Games.
Meanwhile, Edinburgh Airport is calling for the hub to be directly linked to the M8, as the existing access road will not able to cope with growing passenger numbers. It is expected that the airport will eventually be able to handle up to 20 million passengers a year on the existing runway configuration.
Commenting on Edinburgh’s own expansion, chief executive, Gordon Dewar, said there were no plans to open a second runaway at Ingliston for the next 30 years. ‘We have an airport that is accommodating just over nine million passengers a year, but we’re very busy and we’re growing,’ he said.
Mr. Dewar said that Edinburgh was also at risk of losing flights if the capacity of London’s existing airports was not increased. ‘If London had more capacity, we would have had more connection opportunities out of London. There is genuinely a queue of airlines wanting to fly into London that currently can’t come there,’ he said.
