According to the BRS website, passenger numbers fell 8.5% in March !.
A contining trend for this winter period.
Nov was down 5%, Dec down 10% and Feb down nearly 6%. Jan saw a tiny percentage rise of 1.5 because January 2010 was severely snow affected.
Ryanair slashed its winter rotations in 10/11 markedly compared with 9/10 (I haven't got the figures immediately to hand but from memory it was around 35%-40% down) and the Continental effect plays a part in the March figures too.
At least April ought to show an increase, as it should at most airports, because of the volcanic ash closures of April 2010.
Beyond that we will have to wait and see though the Continental axing sees 80,000+ passengers lost this year for a start.
Bristol's annual figures have been in a range either side of 6 mppa for several years now.
What's this about Air Southwest ending the Bristol-Manchester route as reported on another another site ?, that's a shocker, always thought it was a well used service
It's part of Eastern's reorganisation of the Air Southwest network in an attempt to make it profitable.
It's not really a surprise because passenger figures on BRS-MAN have been falling steadily over recent years:
2010 17K
2009 22K
2008 29K
2007 32K
Since Cross Country took over from Virgin the north-south rail service through Bristol two or three years ago there is now a direct link to Manchester every hour which didn't used to be the case - it used to be necessary to change trains in the Midlands on many journeys.
The ASW BRS-LBA link remains at 2 x daily though passenger numbers have been falling at the same rate as the MAN route but from a slightly higher base. BRS-LBA also starts and finishes at ABZ and, from May, NQY/PLH alternately at the other end of this 'bus route'. Bristol-Leeds is also an hourly frequency by train albeit the journey takes a bit longer than the 3-hour Bristol Temple Meads/Bristol Parkway-Manchester Piccadilly service.