EDINBURGH Airport has reported a rare fall in passenger numbers in a reverse it said reflected the impact of Ryanair ending flights between the city and Stansted.
Total passengers numbers in October fell to 1,309,170, down one per cent on the same month in 2018.
The fall was only the second recorded in a period of growth that has lasted five years. The so-called Beast from the East was accompanied by a 0.1% drop in passenger numbers in March 2018.
Ryanair stands by plan to axe cabin crew and pilot jobs
The airport said a 6% year-on-year fall in domestic passenger numbers last month, to 458,686, was driven by Ryanair’s decision to cut the Stansted route from October.
International passenger numbers rose 2% annually, to 850,484, amid strong growth in the short-haul segment.
Airlines have lunched routes linking Edinburgh with European cities including Vienna and Berlin and holiday destinations such as Corfu.
Edinburgh airport chief executive Gordon Dewar said the fall in total numbers was unfortunate after almost 60 months of continuous growth.
Edinburgh Airport chief says its spectacular growth has been an international success story
In an apparent reference to the Scottish Government’s decision to scrap plans to cut the Air Departure Tax levy on flights, he noted: “The arguments around ADT are well known and we cannot hide the fact that we now have yet another obstacle to work around to deliver the growth that has become expected.”
Mr Dewar added: “Connectivity is important to Scotland and our initial talks with the Scottish Government about bringing the world closer to Scotland have been positive.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here