Passenger number for April 485,382 up 33.24% ( ok, it was the Ash Cloud last year and this year includes all of Easter) but even taking that into account there must be some generic growth in that somewhere.
The airport's own monthly figures are usually a few thousand down on the CAA provisional stats when they are published. I was told the difference is partly because the airport excludes transit passengers from its figures but so does the CAA seem to in its monthly provisional airport figures though not in the final figures published a month or two later.............bit of a mystery then.
Yet again this month BRS is not in the first batch of CAA provisional stats but when they do appear they will likely be around 490,000 which will equal the best ever April (2008) in the record-breaking year of 6.23 mppa, and about 17% up on April 2009 when Easter was only a week earlier than this year. That said, in 2008 Easter was in late March.
It's obviously accepted that this April's huge percentage rise in passenger numbers is a statistical freak because of the volcanic ash closure (and early Easter) of April 2010, but there are still signs that give cause for some optimism.
The airport does not record rolling 12-monthly passenger totals, only the current calendar year. The first four months of 2011 saw 1,547,043 passengers passing through the airport, up 4.49% on the same period last year
but we have to take into account that ash closure in 2010.
"Full Service Airline" you say?
I hope for a ME (But no one has suitable equipment as far as I know) or US carrier. I don't think it will be either of those.
I imagine it will be either SAS or a link to Germany from someone.
A web site that specialises in aviation news suggests that the routes will be to Germany, Scandinavia and eastern Europe.