CAA Provisional Statistics Update

[TheLocalYokel]

Looking at last December figures, Liverpool handling around 80,000 more passengers during the month than Leeds Bradford. This highlights how far behind LBA is during the winter months drawing attention back to the previously mentioned reasons; poor weather; delay or diversion perception; lack of ground radar and other associated poor weather landing equipment. As LBAspotter has quite rightly mentioned, this has been discussed on here at great length.

I've had a look at the CAA passenger figures for 2014 for LBA and its peer airports at BRS, NCL, EMA and LPL, as well as the two largest regional airports in England at MAN and BHX.

I've taken the five winter months - January, February, March, November and December - and calculated the number of passengers in those months as a percentage of the whole year for each airport.

LBA 3.263 million annual passengers; 0.767 million winter passengers; 23.5%

LPL 3.984; 1.340; 33.6%

EMA 4.506; 0.974; 21.6%

NCL 4.513; 1.276; 28.3%

BRS 6.333; 1.884; 29.7%

MAN 21.950; 6.702; 30.5%

BHX 9.698; 3.048; 31.4%

It will be seen that LBA and EMA have a noticeably lower proportion of passengers in the winter months than the other airports.

Suggestions have already been made as to the reasons at LBA but I don't know why EMA is so low.

This is only one year's figures but they do at least support the prognosis that LBA could do better in winter.

 

[Tarn Spotter]

Does seem to be an east/west of the country difference, maybe weather is a factor or possibly other long term factors of airport growth.
LBA, EMA and NCL were limited in the 80/90's in there offer, I can remember nothing took off on a sunday from EMa till after 1pm, even in summer, LBA really only took off this century. Certainly in the 80's and 90's for my winter trips it always seemed to be Liverpool or Manchester that I flew from.
When the LCC started up it seemed Ryanair and Easyjet just favoured the north west for whatever reason, the east has been on catch ever since.

 

[White Heather]

LBA's winter figurers have dipped noticeably since Jet2 changed direction and focussed more on holiday flights. There are days in winter when they operate only 2 or 3 flights per day to Amsterdam and Dussledorf with no leisure flights. That has made quite a difference to LBA. In Jet2's early days they were much more active in the winter. November is the worst - no ski flights, very few Mediterranean flights and just a handful of Canary Island flights/Barcelona etc flights.

One obvious similarity between LBA and EMA is that both are within 40 something miles of much busier airports - ie Manchester and Birmingham and both are largely dependent on the same airlines as LBA - Jet2 and Ryanair. When demand shrinks, as it does in winter, airlines are far more likely to consolidate to the nearest big airport and I think that is the case for LBA and EMA. However, EMA does not suffer from this consolidation to the same degree as LBA, as it has other strings to it's bow - namely cargo. EMA is now a major cargo airport, whereas LBA is basically hopeless as far as cargo is concerned. There is no doubt in my mind that successive LBA operators, and Bridgepoint in particular, have failed the region by doing nothing to encourage a more extensive cargo network from LBA.

 

[LBAYORKIE]

But to be fair White Heather, without wide bodied aircraft operating into LBA cargo is never going to develop. An Emirates flight would completely transform the cargo operations.

 

[TheLocalYokel]

I've had a look at the CAA passenger figures for 2014 for LBA and its peer airports at BRS, NCL, EMA and LPL, as well as the two largest regional airports in England at MAN and BHX.

I've taken the five winter months - January, February, March, November and December - and calculated the number of passengers in those months as a percentage of the whole year for each airport.

LBA 3.263 million annual passengers; 0.767 million winter passengers; 23.5%

LPL 3.984; 1.340; 33.6%

EMA 4.506; 0.974; 21.6%

NCL 4.513; 1.276; 28.3%

BRS 6.333; 1.884; 29.7%

MAN 21.950; 6.702; 30.5%

BHX 9.698; 3.048; 31.4%

I've now carried out a similar exercise for 2007, probably the last year before the recession really began to affect airports, with the following result.

LBA 2.860; 0.851; 29.8%

LPL 5.463; 1.730; 31.6%

EMA 5.406; 1.789; 33.1%

NCL 5.624; 1.715; 30.5%

BRS 5.884; 1.976; 33.6%

MAN 21.891; 7.001; 32%

BHX 9.134; 2.983; 32.7%

All the airports had bigger winter percentages in 2007 than in 2014 except LPL, with LBA and EMA markedly up.

These figures illustrate that the recession adversely impacted LPL, EMA and NCL far more than the other airports in this list.

 

[lbaspotter]

CAA UK Airport Provisional Statistic stats for July 2015 are now out for most airports but as has been the usual recently the Leeds/Bradford route figures are missing again apart from a few domestic stats that I've found supplied from other airports.

Aberdeen = 913 +46%
Belfast City = 13825 -7%
Glasgow = 749 -19%
Jersey = 2,872 -11%
London Heathrow = 12,994 +4%

 

[752]

Have our stats been released yet?

 

[TheLocalYokel]

H

ave our stats been released yet?

No, still not on the CAA provisional list for July.

 

[Aviador]

Caa Passenger Statistics for July 2015

A total of 434,638 passengers used Leeds Bradford Airport during July this year, up 7.6% on the same month last year.

Rolling year passenger totals are up 3.9% on the previous 12 months

All in all a very good month for LBA with a monthly passenger total exceeding the monthly total of Liverpool airport once again.

July figure for Liverpool - 426,574

July figure for Leeds Bradford - 434,638

The figures highlight once again, the need to increase passenger totals during the quieter winter months.

How did LBA perform in comparison with other local airports?

DSA (Doncaster) 99,435 for the month of July, up 12.6% on July last year. Rolling passenger totals stand at 808,643 up 16% on the previous 12 months.

EMA (East Midlands) 536,792 for the month of July, down -5.4% on last year. Rolling passenger totals stand at 4,545,310 up 2.8% on the previous 12 months.

MAN (Manchester) Saw 2,555,465 during July of this year up 6.1% on the same month last year. Rolling year passengers stand at 22,599,658 up 5.9% on the previous 12 months.

In actual passenger numbers as opposed to percentages Manchester airport has seen phenomenal growth!

 

[leedsman]

Nice to see the rolling year surpass the 3.4m mark.

The Palma route handled 41,052 (3% up). Could that be a record monthly total for a route at LBA ?

The others that caught my eye were:

Alicante 31,676 (up 28%)
Malaga 30,625 (up 3%) - with Monarch adding this route next year we should see a further increase.
Faro 27,733 (up 15%)
Dublin 27,115 (up 68%) - surely if these numbers continue to rise as they are, 3x daily EIR may be a possibility?
Antalya 6,098 (up 157%)

 

[lbaspotter]

The August 2015 CAA provisional passengers stats must be out as local ITV News Calendar are running the following headline this morning on its website.

http://www.itv.com/news/calendar/update ... d-airport/

Record month for Leeds Bradford Airport

Leeds Bradford Airport (LBA) recorded its busiest ever August when over 400k passengers travelled through the airport.

More than 100k passengers a week used the airport in each of the four weeks during August.

In total LBA's rolling annual passenger total has now increased to 3.4m.

August represented a year on year increase of 4% in the total number of passengers travelling through the airport.

Last updated Thu 17 Sep 2015

 

[lbaspotter]

Here's the official announcement from the airport regarding last month's record setting passenger figures.

Source: http://www.leedsbradfordairport.co.uk/media/1930/lba-record-passenger-numbers.pdf

PRESS RELEASE 17th September 2015
Leeds Bradford® delivered record passenger numbers in August

Leeds Bradford® recorded its busiest ever August when over 400k passengers travelled
through the airport.

For the first time in its history over 100k passengers a week used the airport in each of the four
weeks during August.

In total LBA's rolling annual passenger total has now increased to 3.4m.
August represented a year on year increase of 4% in the total number of passengers travelling
through the airport.

The introduction of new business and leisure services and an increase in frequency on a
number of domestic routes have underpinned this performance. In total Leeds Bradford® now
serves 60 destinations flying to over 20 countries with 10 major airlines.

Meanwhile Leeds Bradford® Airport’s Aviation Development Director Tony Hallwood and John
Parkin the airport’s Chief Executive will be in Durban, South Africa next week at the World
Routes Conference meeting new airlines to encourage the introduction of routes and services
for 2016 and beyond.

John Parkin Leeds Bradford® Airport's Chief Executive commented:
"Leeds Bradford® has delivered strong passenger growth over the first half of 2015 as more
passengers decide to fly close from home or their business saving on their journey time. With
an increase in destination choice more passengers can now fly conveniently from LBA and we
continue to make progress in delivering a wider choice of airlines.

We would also like to thank all of our customers who flew from the airport. We are also very
proud of our role as a travel gateway to the region, alongside supporting more jobs and delivering
improved access to the Northern Powerhouse."

 

[lbaspotter]

So after todays news regarding the record setting month for LBA it would seem yet again that the LBA figures are still not showing on the CAA provisional passenger stats lists for August 2015.

So after a little checking here are some of the Domestic UK Airports figures that have been released

London Heathrow = 13,278 +12%
Aberdeen = 805 +24%
Belfast City = 14,408 -2%
Glasgow = 568 -12%
Jersey = 3,424 -1%

Must say that is a very impressive figure for British Airways London Heathrow route again, even though we had quite a few cancelled rotations throughout August and maybe the reasoning behind the larger Airbus A320's appearing a few times.

 

[lbaspotter]

Full CAA stats have now been released, Wow I thought 400,000 figure was good but it looks like August was even higher than the figure given in the airport own press release earlier this week..

A whopping total of 451,616 passengers pass through LBA terminal in the month of August 2015 which is up +3.5% on the same month last year. Meanwhile the year rolling figure now stands at 3,418,052 passengers which is also up +4.5 on the same time last year.

 

[Aviador]

Excellent figures.

 

[Tarn Spotter]

Have to say we flew out at 14.45 last Monday afternoon and the terminal seemed more crowded then our normal 7am flights, we returned at 15.00 hrs Friday afternoon again to a full terminal, but our cases beat us, well done the airport staff.
Both flights too and from Budapest full.

 

[lbaspotter]

CAA provisional passenger stats for September 2015 have been released this afternoon, Bad news as it looks like Leeds/Bradford's Figures are missing yet again form the first issue which has become the normal of late..

After looking at the domestic figures and it would seem like British Airways continue to improve on the Leeds/Bradford - London Heathrow route as they carried a massive 15,590 passengers which is an increase of +14% on the same month last year. Thats the most they have ever carried in 1 month since the operation started..

 

[Seasider]

September passenger figures were 395719 +3.9%, yearly 3432737 +5.4%.

 

[Aviador]

Great figures.

To add to the previous post by Seasider, this is how Leeds Bradford Airport compared with our nearest competing airports during the same period.

• Manchester - 2,427,811 - +5.5% up on the same month last year, 22,854,025 +5.6% up rolling year.
• Doncaster - 94,001 +12.4% up on the same month last year, 827,294 +17.9% up rolling year.
• East Midlands - 505,646 -6.5% down on the same month last year, 4,447,223 -0.5% down rolling year.
• Newcastle - 494,672 -0.7% down on the same month last year, 4,558,254 +1.4% up rolling year

I think East Midlands is still suffering the effects of the Monarch Airlines withdrawal.

All in all, an excellent month for Leeds Bradford Airport. We just need a few more new flights for next summer to keep the momentum going.

 

[Bigman]

Well, the stats are late out again and LBA not showing as yet. The only routes showing are Heathrow, up 19% to 13,769 and Belfast City down 11% to 12,844.