Heathrow is expected to record its highest annual passenger numbers in 2011, despite a dip in traffic over the last few months.
BAA, the airport’s owner, said Heathrow was to report 69.7 million passengers during last year, after setting six months of consecutive records for traffic between April and September – although numbers were lower than forecast since September.
Despite this slowdown in the final months of last year, Heathrow operated close to its maximum allowed 480,000 aircraft movements per year.
Passenger numbers at Heathrow are expected to set a new record of 70.8m in 2012 according to estimates from BAA, which said the airport would benefit from a “further modest growth in load factors” next year.
BAA said larger aircraft would also boost numbers at Heathrow in 2012 such as an extra A380 daily rotation by Emirates to Dubai starting in January.
Singapore Airlines is also likely to increase A380 rotations to Heathrow this year, while Malaysian Airlines is expected to introduce A380 services to Kuala Lumpur. Malaysian will be the fourth airline to operate A380 services from Heathrow.
The company said that traffic at sister airport Stansted was around 17.9 million last year – down from 18.6m in 2010. BAA expects these numbers to fall further in 2012 to 17.3m. This is being attributed to Easyjet’s decision to move three of its Stansted aircraft to Southend from April.
BAA also said that it expects a decision on whether it will be granted a judicial review to stop it being forced to sell Stansted to be made in the first three months of this year. The company is challenging the Competition Commission’s decision that it must offload Stansted, and issued proceedings at the Competition Appeal Tribunal asking for a judicial review of this decision.
This case was heard by the tribunal in December when BAA argued that there had been “material changes in circumstances” since the commission’s decision was originally made in 2009.
BAA is also being required to sell either Glasgow or Edinburgh and has already announced Edinburgh will be sold.