Glasgow Airport, in Scotland, has reported its busiest year in the last four years, with around 7.2 million passengers travelling through the facility in 2012.
The 2012 passenger traffic figures represent an increase of around 4.2 percent over the passenger traffic recorded for 2011. The airport’s growth is mostly due to the introduction of a number of new routes, including Amsterdam, Barcelona and Rome, which contributed to the 6.4 percent increase in international traffic, compared to a 2.1 percent increase in domestic traffic for the year.
In December 2012, Glasgow Airport served around 440,000 passengers, an increase of 4.3 percent compared to the same month in 2011.
Amanda McMillan, the managing director of Glasgow Airport, said, ‘We worked extremely hard throughout 2012 against a backdrop of continued economic uncertainty, to expand our route network and provide passengers with greater choice.
We had considerable success in attracting services such as Emirates’ second daily flight to Dubai, which not only encouraged more people to fly to and from Glasgow but helped strengthen Scotland’s connectivity with important global markets.
Whilst we are extremely encouraged at having exceeded the seven million mark, the current economic outlook is a cause for concern as are the planned increases in Air Passenger Duty (APD), which will come into effect following the budget in March. However, we remain committed to working with our city partners throughout 2013 to secure further routes and boost the in-bound tourism potential of Glasgow.’
The figures represented the airport’s busiest year for passenger traffic since 2009.
