Poor weather in January adversely affected passenger numbers at BAA airports. The figures also reveal an encouraging improvement in the overall trend, once the disruption has been taken into account.

At Heathrow there was a drop of 0.5% in passenger numbers compared to last January. Without the bad weather causing the loss of around 145,000 passengers at the airport, traffic would have grown by an estimated 2.5%.

Similarly, the figures for BAA as a whole show a drop of 3.1%, meaning we handled 7.2 million passengers in January.  Without the disruption it is estimated the drop would have been 0.3%.

At Stansted the drop was 5.6%; at Southampton 9.7%; Glasgow 12.2%; Edinburgh 7.4%; Aberdeen 13.6%. At each airport a significant part of the drop can be attributed to the snow. As in December, Glasgow and Edinburgh were also impacted by the collapse of the airline Flyglobespan.

By market, North Atlantic traffic was down 3.8% and scheduled European traffic was down 0.3%. There were rises in South America (9.6%), and in the Middle East (9.5%).

Cargo traffic continued the recovery first seen in October, rising in January by 13.9%.

Traffic at Naples rose by 11.6%.

Colin Matthews, chief executive of BAA 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.  This once again underlines Heathrow's role as the UK's only hub airport."

For further information, please contact the BAA press office on 020 8745 7224.

BAA traffic summary: January 2010

Market comparison: UK airports January 2010

* Includes North African charter

Note: Origins and destinations are classified according to ultimate origin or destination of aircraft in the case of multi-sector flights.

Note: Figures for the market sectors have been rounded. Totals as per traffic summary.