Passenger numbers down in November Withdrawn services and winter schedule have impact.
A total of 1,000,246 passengers passed through Edinburgh Airport in November 2019, a decrease of 4.3% on the same month last year.
Despite growth being recorded in the in international market, the withdrawal of the Stansted service and airlines reducing services during the winter season has impacted on passenger numbers.
Nov % vs Last Year
Domestic 411,819 -13.5%
International 588,427 3.3%
Total 1,000,246 -4.3%
MAT 14,726,010. 3.6%
Gordon Dewar, Chief Executive of Edinburgh Airport said:
“We’re on course for another record year at Edinburgh Airport and we welcome that but there’s always a disappointment that we haven’t been able to share Edinburgh and Scotland with more tourists.
“The end of one of our most popular domestic routes has clearly had an impact and the winter season always sees a small reduction in services so these numbers are not unexpected, but it does show that the industry requires support to address the connectivity deficit that Scotland has.”
Background
Domestic market was -13.5% behind November 2018 due to the following reasons:
- Ryanair cut the Stansted route starting October 2019 (impact: -48k passengers compared to Nov 18)
The negative impact was softened by strong performance on other domestic routes:
- British Airways had more frequencies on Heathrow compared to November 2018
- Loganair started a new route to East Midlands
International market recorded a +3.3% YoY growth due strong growth in the short-haul segment. These are the reasons for the traffic growth in more detail:
- Delta increased from 5x weekly to daily service to JFK
- Ryanair started 3 new routes this year: Billund, Luxembourg & Bucharest
- Lufthansa started a new route to Munich in December 2018
- Loganair started new routes to Bergen & Stavanger in May 2019
- Lauda started operating a new route to Vienna in October 2019
Popular destinations in November:
- Poland: Poznan, Wroclaw, Katowice, Krakow, Gdansk & Poznan
- City Destinations: Budapest, Sofia, Rome, Bologna, Riga, Berlin, Kaunas, Madrid & Athens
- Spain & Portugal: Canary Islands, Madeira & Alicante
New routes for December 2019:
easyJet to Verona
Wizz Air to Bucharest, Budapest, Warsaw Chopin & Gdansk
New routes announced for 2020 launch:
Birmingham with easyJet (Mar)
Catania with easyJet (Mar)
Gibraltar with easyJet (Mar)
Naples with TUI Airways (Mar)
Bydgoszcz with Ryanair (Apr)
Rotterdam with Transavia (Apr)
Izmir with Jet2 (May)
London Southend with Flybe (Jun)
Sharm el Sheikh with TUI Airways (Nov)