Edinburgh and Glasgow airports boom

Edinburgh Airport is on course for its busiest year ever and Glasgow Airport is on track to record its strongest year since 2008.

Edinburgh had 794,792 passengers in November, a 12.4% per cent increase from the same month last year, making it the busiest November ever for a Scottish airport.

Edinburgh’s success has been helped by a 22.5% increase in international routes including easyJet and Ryanair’s services to European destinations, Qatar Airways’ increased service to Doha and Etihad Airways service to Abu Dhabi as well as the continued strong performance on routes to London and across the UK.

“These exceptionally strong figures represent our busiest ever November,” said Edinburgh Airport chief executive Gordon Dewar.

“Edinburgh Airport has experienced passenger numbers levels in November — a quiet month in air travel — on a par with what many other regional airports do at the peak of summer …

“This has been another record-breaking month and is a sure sign of the growing success of both Scotland and Edinburgh as a destination which emphasises our position as a key driver for Scotland’s economic growth … we are on course to make 2015 our busiest year ever.”

Glasgow Airport had 618,583 passengers in November, up 7.7% from last November.

Glasgow’s international traffic grew by 12.2% due to strong demand for new routes to eastern European cities, including Wizz Air’s services to Budapest, Vilnius and Lublin and Ryanair’s new service to Berlin.

Domestic traffic grew by 4.5%, with Flybe’s newly reinstated service to Exeter proving popular, and easyJet responded to demand for its London routes by increasing capacity on its Gatwick and Stansted services.

“Our November figures not only guarantee we will end the year on a high — they will ensure we are in a strong position as we prepare to enter 2016, the airport’s 50th anniversary year,” said Amanda McMillan, managing director of Glasgow Airport.

“In addition to gearing up for the Christmas getaway, we have already seen a new service to Milan launch this month with easyJet and there is more to come before the end of the year.  Later this month Blue Air and Wizz Air will both begin a new service to the Romanian capital of Bucharest and British Airways will start a new Saturday service to Salzburg for the ski season.”

Over the past 12 months, Glasgow Airport has secured 26 new routes and services. In November, easyJet announced a new service to Marseille for summer 2016 and Ryanair launched a route to Berlin.