Passenger numbers drop to levels from 1973, airport bosses tell MPs

PASSENGER numbers at Glasgow Airport dropped down to levels not seen since 1973 due to the pandemic, MPs have been told.

Bosses at Scottish airports set out the scale of the decrease in passengers as they spoke to Westminster’s Scottish Affairs Committee on Monday.

Brian McClean, director of communications and sustainability at AGS Airports, said there had been millions fewer passengers going through his company’s airports in Aberdeen and Glasgow.

He told the committee: ‘Aberdeen Airport carried about three million passengers in 2019. Last year, we finished [having carried] about 1.1 million passengers.

‘Glasgow Airport, we carried just below nine million passengers in 2019.

‘We finished around two million last year. The last time we carried two million passengers was in 1973. So this has absolutely set us back decades when it comes to loss of passengers and loss of connectivity.’

Reports of a spike in airline travel last weekend showed there was a ‘pent-up demand’, he said.