Consumers avoid airports as bad weather takes its toll

LONDON - Adverse weather conditions in January caused a severe drop in the number of passengers travelling through the UK's airports.

Snowed in: recent bad weather reduced footfall at UK airports
Snowed in: recent bad weather reduced footfall at UK airports

According to airport operator BAA, footfall at its six UK airports in January fell year on year by 3.1%, to 7.2 million.

Scottish airports were hardest hit by the snow and ice, with Aberdeen Airport seeing a 13.6% decline in passenger numbers. Similarly, numbers fell at both Glasgow and Edinburgh airports by 12.2% and 7.4% respectively.

Airports in England also succumbed to the weather, with Southampton Airport seeing a 9.7% fall in passenger numbers, while Stansted saw a 5.6% fall. Heathrow held up rather better, with only a 0.5% year-on-year drop.

BAA chief executive Colin Matthews said: "There is no doubt that the market remains a difficult one and certainly the snow didn't help, but, equally, there are encouraging signs of growth, particularly on the routes out of Heathrow to the Middle East and South America, as well as cargo."

Today's confirmation of how airports were adversely affected follows news that the country's high street retailers had their worst start to the New Year in half a decade, as the cold weather kept would-be shoppers at home.

According to Synovate's Retail Traffic, the number of shoppers in non-food stores over January was down 5% year on year.

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