The CAA stats do not tally with the airports that are issuing them. As I said, there's a 9000 difference:
MAN stats in 000s 18,428.7
STN stats in 000s 18,437.8
Would be interesting to see the transfer stats for STN as there's roughly another 190,000 pax to add to MAN.
Quite a drop for STN from it's heyday; with the economy being as it is perhaps those in the STN catchment area are no longer deciding to take as much discretionary travel with the cheap fares leading to a reduction in based units, destinations and frequency. We have to wait to see what the impact will be on MAN - already we know that the DL service to JFK is being pulled from September with it being reinstated from June.