The low cost airports - such as PIK - seem to be doing very well, thank you! (PIK has the highest passenger growth in percentage terms of any UK airport). It's the likes of BAA that are seen as overcharging and greedy - the reason Go's CEO has given for their pullout from the Dublin routes.
From yesterday's Business am:
Go snubs Scottish airports to set up third base in Midlands
by James Ashton
Last update: 09:14, Dec 13, 2001
GO, the lowcosrt airline, is to make East Midlands its third international base - snubbing both Glasgow and Edinburgh airports.
The carrier – which is also to scrap its Dublin to Glasgow and Edinburgh services – claimed landing charges in Scotland were too expensive.
Go chief executive Barbara Cassani said: "BAA"s high landing charges at Edinburgh and Glasgow are not competitive when it comes to developing new international
low-cost routes."
Meanwhile, the decline in passengers passing through the UK's major airports is slowing with low-cost airlines continuing to shine, new figures from BAA have revealed.
The airports operator said 8.1 million passengers passed through its seven UK locations in November, 10.6% down on the same month a year ago.
This is a slight improvement on October's figures when BAA's airports, which include Heathrow and Gatwick, saw a year-on-year fall
of 12%. BAA said Edinburgh, Glasgow and Stansted were again the best performers in November, fuelled by the success of budget
airlines. Passengers volumes at Stansted were up 7.2%, with growth of 8.2% in Edinburgh and 3.3% at Glasgow.
Heathrow and Gatwick continued to be the worst affected by the impact of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
BAA's remaining two regional airports, Aberdeen and Southampton, saw passenger numbers fall 2.9% and 4.3% respectively last month.
The number of passengers passing through Heathrow airport was down 13.5% at 4.3 million, while Gatwick saw a fall of 19.8% to 1.6 million. North Atlantic traffic was off 26.1% although BAA said these routes were “showing signs of improvement”.
The fall in October was 31.3%. Other long haul traffic fell 12.7% in November. BAA said the later school half-term break this year had helped November's total passenger numbers.
It added, however, last year's figures for the month were helped by people choosing to fly domestic air routes due to the chaos on the railways. UK domestic traffic last month was 7.9% lower year-on-year.[/quote]