Passengers fall; SSE call for expansion plans to be scrapped
11.06.08
The number of passengers using Stansted Airport fell by 4.4% from January to May, figures released today by BAA reveal. But while Stop Stansted Expansion (SSE) called the news as the ‘rise and fall’ of the airport, the airport said it was a cyclical event against a background of a global economic slow down.
Stansted handled 3.3% fewer passengers in May (2.02m) compared to the same month in 2007 and 4.4% less in the four months from January to May 2008 (8,7m). In the rolling 12 months to the end of May its passengers were down 1.6% to 23.4m.
SSE called on BAA to scrap its ‘misguided expansion plans’ for a second runway, pointing out that it was the seventh month in a row that Stansted had posted a passenger decline. It added that Stansted had lost all 3 transatlantic routes in the past 6 months and was back to being an airport focused on cheap leisure flights to UK and European destinations.
SSE campaign director Carol Barbone said: ‘It seems that Stansted's management are so focused on pie in the sky expansion plans that they've taken their eye off the ball and are losing passengers in droves. They should end their obsession with building a white elephant runway that nobody wants.’
But a spokesman for Stansted Airport said: ‘Everybody knows there's a global economic slow down and it's affecting different markets in different ways. Heathrow's numbers are fluctuating up and down too. We are not unduly worried.’ He said that G2 (the second runway) was needed to provide extra capacity in the South East. ‘We are getting on with the job.’
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