Edinburgh airport has experienced its first fall in passenger numbers for five years following Ryanair’s withdrawal of flights to Stansted.
Apart from the March 2018 ‘Beast from the East’ winter storm that caused a 0.1 per cent fall in traffic, the Scottish airport has seen numbers grow for half a decade.
While international traffic grew by 2 per cent in October 2019, the loss of the Ryanair route – which originally operated four times daily but dropped to four weekly and was fully cut last month – saw domestic numbers fall 6.1 per cent year-over-year.
Total traffic decreased 1 per cent to more than 1.3 million passengers.
Edinburgh airport CEO Gordon Dewar said: “We’ve had almost 60 months of continuous growth and it’s unfortunate that we’ve seen this temporary fall in passenger numbers – something we earlier this year predicted would happen.
“It shows us that growth is not guaranteed and it is only possible with hard work and a collaborative approach. The arguments around ADT [Air Departure Tax] are well known and we cannot hide the fact that we now have yet another obstacle to work around the deliver that growth that has become expected. Connectivity is important to Scotland and our initial talks with the Scottish government about bringing the world closer to Scotland have been positive.
“As an airport, we play our part in tourism, business, education, research and culture, so ensuring a sustainable future for the industry is very important. We need to work together to deliver that.”
The Scottish government had planned to cut ADT by 50 per cent to encourage airlines to establish more routes from its airports, but a decision was made earlier this year to scrap the reduction following pressure from environmental groups.
At the time, Dewar called the move “reactionary” and said it “raises questions about continued support for our tourism sector”.
edinburghairport.com