Heathrow T2 to get a refit
AIRPORT owner BAA yesterday unveiled plans for a £1bn refurbishment of Heathrow’s Terminal 2, which will allow capacity at the depot to grow by 11.5m to around 30m passengers each year by 2019.
The environmentally friendly refurbishment (pictured), part of a £4.8bn investment at the airport in west London, will house airlines belonging to the Star Alliance network, including BMI and Lufthansa.
The current building will be demolished, reopening in 2013 and extending into the present Terminal 1 site, which will be closed by then.
BAA claims expansion is “crucial” for Heathrow to remain competitive.
The news came as BAA reported a stabilisation of passenger numbers in July, with Heathrow – the UK’s largest airport – showing its first increase in traffic for three years.
The group, which is owned by Spain’s Ferrovial, handled a total of 14.5m passengers for the summer month at its seven UK airports, which also include Gatwick, Stansted and Edinburgh.
The figure is a 2.4 per cent drop from July 2008, but represents a slowing in the rate of decline in passengers flying.
For June, the number of people going through BAA’s airports was 5.9 per cent down year-on-year, while May saw a 7.3 per cent drop.
Heathrow saw 6.5m passengers travelling through it last month, up 0.9 per cent from the previous year, and a three per cent cut in the rate of decline at the airport for the year to date.
The fall in passenger numbers at Gatwick was just 4.8 per cent last month, compared with 7.6 per cent for June.
Stansted saw a more impressive rate of improvement, as its decline dropped down from 11.5 per cent in June to 5.7 per cent in July.
AER LINGUS
TRAFFIC FIGURES
IRISH airline Aer lingus said yesterday its passenger traffic for July rose 8.2 per cent to 1.12m, as carriers worldwide start to see a slowdown in the slumping demand for air travel.
But the company’s load factor, which measures how full planes are, fell to 82.3 per cent from 83.3 per cent in the same period last year.
Aer Lingus also said the airline’s long-haul load factor fell four per cent to 77 per cent with capacity falling by 12.7 per cent. The carrier also said it added bases at Gatwick and Belfast.