November Provisional CAA Stats:
MAN up to 23.02 million with a 6.3% growth in month which is ahead of background growth of 5.5% based on available airport data.
Don't forget that the overall UK increase of 5.5% is heavily influenced by LHR with only 2% growth but which accounts for nearly 1/3 of total pax. Without getting into the argument as to which is more important - the actual number of extra pax or the percentage - for the record, LGW was up 7%, and LTN a massive 23.7%, whereas LBA was down 3.3% and EMA 0.6%. Some large variations in performance.
I think it's fair to say that MAN's underlying growth was possibly 2% higher than the actual figure of 6.3%. Strikes and cancellations meant that FRA & MUC combined were down 10,500 pax. Due to other events, PAR was down 3,300 and SSH down over 18,000. Pax to LHR with the loss of Little Red fell by nearly 19,000. Of course, we don't know how many of the pax affected still flew from MAN to other destinations and how many didn't travel at all or from/to other airports. Or for that matter, whether without those events (excl LHR) there would have been increases rather than nil growth.
On short haul, there were impressive gains to OSL, ARN, CPH, AMS, DUB and several Italian destinations.
Will comment on long haul separately.