Domestic and International passenger markets increase in January.

Strong growth in both passenger markets resulted in Edinburgh Airport recording its busiest ever January.

A total of 920,474 passengers passed through the airport last month, up almost 10% on the same month last year.

Growth was recorded in both the domestic and international markets at 10.4% and 9.6% respectively.

 It comes after the airport recorded its busiest ever year in 2018 with 14.3 million passengers using the terminal – a record for any Scottish airport.

Gordon Dewar, Chief Executive of Edinburgh Airport said:

“To see growth in both our domestic and international market is encouraging and is a great way to start 2019, especially just after we recorded our busiest ever year.

“The international and domestic routes we delivered last year are proving popular and we have announced further new routes this year which we are confident will maintain our strong numbers. We are also seeing additional frequency being added to routes such as Doha with Qatar Airways and Istanbul with Turkish Airlines, a clear sign of confidence in Scotland’s busiest airport.

“Clearly growth is a positive, but we cannot afford to settle for where we are – we must be outward looking and attract more new airlines and destinations, something which is being restricted by the reluctance to act on APD. We have to remain competitive and seize on all available opportunities, especially as we wait on clarity around Brexit.”

Background

Domestic market was ahead +10.4% vs January 2018 due to the following reasons:

• Ryanair restarted its Stansted route and it is running fully with an additional daily frequency
• Ryanair launched a new route to Derry (Oct 18) & easyJet launched a new service to Jersey (Mar 18)
• Increased frequencies to London City by both BA Cityflyer and Flybe compared to last January

International market recorded a +9.6% YoY growth due to 22 new international routes launched last year. These are the reasons for the strong growth in more detail:

• Ryanair started operating 8 new international routes last winter: Seville, Tallinn, Berlin Schoenefeld, Stockholm Skavsta, Lisbon, Memmingen, Sofia & Riga
• Ryanair also started route to Hamburg earlier in 2018 and extended Goteburg-Landvetter route to year-round
• Emirates launched a new daily service to Dubai
• Hainan Airlines launched a new service to Beijing
• Since last January, easyJet started a new route to Seville, and extended the Naples service to year-round.
• Air France are using a larger plane than last year

Popular destinations in January were:

• Poland: Gdansk, Poznan, Wroclaw, Warsaw, Katowice & Krakow
• City Destinations: Riga, Madrid, Dusseldorf, Stuttgart, Barcelona, Rome, Paris, Athens, Amsterdam & Budapest

New routes to be launched in 2019 (11 routes: 9 international and 2 domestic):

Mar 2019:

Loganair to Islay

Apr 2019:

American Airlines to Philadelphia

Ryanair to Billund & Luxembourg

May 2019:

Delta Airlines to Boston

Jet 2 to Bodrum, Bourgas and Corfu

Loganair to Bergen, Stavanger & Guernsey