Heathrow traffic and business commentary October 2013

11-Nov-2013

• 6.3 million passengers passed through Heathrow in October 2013, up 4.6% on the previous year
• Adjusting for the effects of fog and hurricane Sandy in 2012, and hurricane St Jude this year, underlying growth was 4.0%
• Passengers per aircraft rose 1.4% to 154.6
• BRIC passengers were up 5.9%, with passengers to China, India and Brazil up 19.2%, 8.3% and 4.7% respectively

Heathrow CEO Colin Matthews said:

"Traffic to the BRIC economies was strong this month, driven in part by a 19.2% increase in passengers to China. Heathrow is now the only UK airport serving the market after Air China suspended its services from Gatwick, making it the latest in a long list of airlines that have found it impossible to make long-haul business routes work from point to point airports. In contrast, BA has redeployed previous bmi slots to introduce a new route from Heathrow to Chengdu, showing that if new capacity were available at the UK's hub, airlines would add new routes."