CAA Provisional Statistics Update

[User0001]

Very encouraging news for LBA. Long may it continue

 

[Bigman]

What non-one has picked up on is that after all these years we have finally moved up a place!!! We have overtaken London City (2,745,121). No stats for Belfast City yet but we cannot be far off. We are now only 22,000 behind Aberdeen.

 

[radar]

Having lost their Ryanair flights recently, I can't see the Belfast City numbers being great when they appear. LBA was right behind them last month, so I'm sure that'll be another place gained this month, with Aberdeen to follow next month.

After that, there's a bit of a jump to the next pack, Belfast Aldergrove has just sneaked under 4m ppa and it's the next in line.

 

[Aviador]

Hi all, been watching this board for a long time now...

Just a note to remember how much the adverse weather we suffer affects the passenger figures on a year on year basis.
As rightly said Jan 2010 suffered massive weather disruption (Feb also did too) but if a passenger doesnt actually fly then they don't count as a departing pasenger on the statistics. So these passengers may have been there last year, been through the airport, spent money in the shops, but ended up on a cancelled flight or a bus to another airport.

This does make the year on year comparisons a little cloudy to say the least!

First poster! leasantry:

Welcome to Forums4airports.

I thought the same but we both gain and loose with bad weather diverts so I don't know what effect that has on the passenger totals.

 

[jason1-11]

The issue with Leeds is often a "mindset" problem. People are so use to flying from Manchester that they don't even consider Leeds. An example is my sister lives nr Tingley, but when they fly to Malaga five times a year, they always use Monarch or Jet2 from Manchester. My other sister who lives In Burley in Wharfedale used KLM recently from Manchester without even batting an eyelid. My parents always use Emirates longhaul and again have never considered using KLM. Travel Agents don't help as unless you specify Leeds, they just assume you wont to fly from somewhere else.

Ryanair and Jet2 have done a great job of keep Yorkshire passengers flying from a Yorkshire airport, but there's of course definitely more potential.

The key is that the services have to be available in the first place at the right price and the right frequency. After that it's the service at the airport ie queues and facilities etc and of course the ease of getting there. I would also state that the days when Leeds has severe weather really doesn't help its reputation either.

My feelings are that if the right decisions are made by the Airport Management in the next couple of years ie terminal and runway improvements, Leeds will grow to become the airport we all want and be on a par with the likes of Bristol and Newcastle.

 

[rmac]

Jason1-11.... what you say is true. Often people do have a mind set and it can be difficult to change that. In years gone by people in the east of Scotland thought you have to fly from Glasgow and sometimes Manchester, but now as the services are in place at Edinburgh many, many more fly out of EDinburgh and do not consider Glasgow. I also used to hear of "we have to go from Manchester" , I have myself, but nowadays we hardly ever hear of that,partly due to the fact that Manchester is a pain to get to, but there is such a range of destinations from the local airport. So as more routes are on offer, and the new terminal improvements are completed, I would expect that more local passengers will increasingly fly from LBA. Even now it is not that bad. Last year when flying to Newcastle there was a delay and when talking to fellow travellers I was amazed how many people from Tyneside and Teeside said they prefered flying from Leeds compared to Newcastle. Good road connections from the north, easier parking and a preference for Jet2 over EasyJet were the main reasons. Of course flight times and cost are also deciding factors.

 

[User0001]

3m passengers in 2011 will still be a stretch. The rolling number will increase in Feb and Mar. Apr will be the first month when the Ryanair base will be in the previous year numbers but the ash-cloud effect will help of course. So it should be ticking along at about 2.8m to 2.85m come May, at which point growth will be lower. The question is, is there another 150 - 200,000 passengers coming through in May to December 2011 vs the same period in 2010.

 

[radar]

There are a lot more FR seats on sale this year, though aren't there? I think 3m is probably do-able.

 

[User0001]

I think there are about 4 or 5 extra ryanair departures per week for the summer timetable compared to last year.

 

[Bigman]

I see a few comments inferring that our big increase in Jan 11 was all down to shocking weather in Jan 10. I would like to remind everyone that despite worse weather in Dec 10 compared to Dec 09 we still saw a 9% increase. It can't all be linked to the weather!!!

Yes, we have got quite a few extra Ryanair flights for Summer. Let's not forget we have got the Onur Air Turkey flights back and 6 extra KLM flights a week. I don't see why we can't hit 3m.

 

[White Heather]

Neither do I - 3m should be achievable this year. Not only are there more Ryanair and KLM flights, (and Jet2 did say they would be putting more seats on sale although I am not quite sure where!), the general level of bookings per flight seems to up too, as demonstrated by the January figures. Most aircraft appear to be flying with fewer empty seats.

 

[radar]

Belfast City's figures for January have belatedly appeared in the CAA stats today, confirming that LBA leapfrogged both BHD and LCY last month to move up to 15th. Aberdeen to follow next month?

 

[Aviador]

Excellent news for LBA!

 

[lbaspotter]

February 2011 Provisional Airport Statistics are now out.

There still looking good but I guess they could have been better if we had not had the Snow, Fog and the bad winds as we lost quite a few diverted flights in February.

http://www.caa.co.uk/docs/80/airpor...ruary_2011_Provisional_Airport_Statistics.pdf

Total ATM's in February 2011 were 2,196 which is 13.9% up compared to last year.

Passengers Statistics for the month were 144,657 which is also up by 21% over last year.

And the rolling figure now stands at 2,783,242 for LBA

 

[White Heather]

They are still fantastic figures in the current climate and I suspect will be the highest increase of any airport in the UK. It is a pity that we lost a good few flights due to weather, but it still bodes well for the coming year provided we do not lose too many domestic routes due to the recession.

 

[Aviador]

With the loss of the H4U flights for this summer I thought I'd do a comparison of passengers using LBA vs MAN on August 2010 figures.

Clearly MAN is a big airport but both airports have a similar sized 2 hour drive time catchment area.

The East - West divide.

LBA - LCA - 3,221
MAN- LCA - 37,729

LBA - PFO - 3,910
MAN- PFO - 30,588

LBA - HER - 2,162
MAN- HER - 35,493

LBA - RHO - 3,051
MAN- RHO - 26,541

LBA - MLA - 3,108
MAN- MLA - 19,613

LBA - AMS - 20,209
MAN- AMS - 35,251

LBA - FAO - 16,405
MAN- FAO - 40,742

LBA - ALC - 25,553
MAN- ALC - 50,431

LBA - AGP - 29,657
MAN- AGP - 42,493

LBA - PMI - 32,048
MAN- PMI - 98,313

LBA - TFS - 5,693
MAN- TFS - 54,586

LBA - DLM - 7,053
MAN- DLM - 106,902

LBA - BJV - 1,496
MAN- BJV - 37,117

LBA - LPA - 1,736
MAN- LPA - 17,342

A similar picture is shown on nearly all available like for like routes even when you use all the airports to the East of the Pennines vs Manchester airport.

 

[Aviador]

We're still waiting for the March passenger figures to be uploaded onto the CAA site.

 

[Aviador]

Thanks xboy999 much appreciated. Doesn't that mean we're actually up 10.8% even after the Ryanair effect? That's great news.

 

[User0001]

So has Ryanair been at Leeds over a year now? My god how time flies!!

Next months figures are going to be very hard to interpret, as April was when the Volcano madness started, so, Id expect every UK airport to be up.

Its just going to be a question of what the legitimate rise is versus the days lost last year to the ash.

 

[radar]

Figures out today. The April pax figure for LBA was an astonishing 265235. Never mind comparing to April of last year with the ash cloud, that beats the previous busiest April (2006) by more than 45000 passengers.

The rolling year-to-date figure jumps to 2.88m, overtaking Aberdeen (which itself grew strongly in April) to make LBA the 14th biggest airport in the UK.

Itching to see what the summer will bring!