Scottish air travel hits sky high levels in May

Overseas travel boost for airports

Scotland’s biggest airports welcomed record numbers of passengers in May.

Edinburgh Airport saw 1,231,712 passengers pass through its doors, representing a 10.8% increase on May 2016’s statistics.

Meanwhile, Glasgow welcomed 910,000 passengers, also a double digit uplift on the previous year.

The figures for Edinburgh were the third highest on record and were bolstered by overseas travel, with international passenger numbers up 15.6% 766,094.

“This is the busiest May on record and shows that our passengers are responding to greater choice at Edinburgh Airport,” said Gordon Dewar, chief executive of Edinburgh Airport.

“We continue to work with our airline partners to offer the destinations our passengers want, and in May launched Pula, Rhodes and Malaga with Thomson, and Jet2.com launched Thessaloniki.”

Glasgow saw a similar boost to outgoing passengers with international travel up 16.5% in the period and 2% respectively because of additional capacity on airlines including Thomson and Thomas Cook.

Airport chiefs say there was strong demand for its European city destinations including Eurowings’ Dusseldorf route and Ryanair services to Brussels, Sofia and Valencia.

Amanda McMillan, managing director of Glasgow Airport, said: “May was an extremely successful month which saw the launch of Delta Air Lines’ inaugural New York-JFK route and new service to Bergen and the Isle of Man.

“Strengthening our EU connectivity continues to be an area of focus, so Lufthansa’s recent decision to expand its current seasonal weekly service to four flights per week all year round was extremely welcome news.”

This is the busiest May on record. GORDON DEWAR, EDINBURGH AIRPORT