UK aviation trends
I've just done a little exercise with the CAA stats on aircraft movements 2004-2014.
I looked at where each airport was in 2014 compared to its peak year for aircraft movements in the previous ten years. Out of 60 reporting airports that have been active throughout that period, only two - Aberdeen and Sumburgh - had more movements in 2014 than in their peak year.
The rest have a long way to go to get back to their peak activity level. At those 58 airports the mean reduction from peak year to 2014 was 30%.
Now, you can point to numerous things to put these figures in context:
- GA movements pushed out of larger airports to non-reporting airports
- some trend towards larger commercial aircraft means less movements doesn't necessarily mean less commercial success
but the decline can also be seen at GA-only or mainly GA airfields like Biggin, Cambridge, Carlisle, Shoreham.
Quite sobering.