Wet summer sends 1.6m passengers through JLA

Oct 8 2007 by David Higgerson, Liverpool Daily Post

MORE than 1.6m people travelled through Liverpool’s John Lennon Airport over the summer as poor weather sent holidaymakers flocking to overseas destinations.

Figures put out by JLA show the three main budget airlines recorded the largest increase in passenger numbers in summer 2007, with Easyjet reclaiming the title of largest operator at the airport from rival Ryanair.

Easyjet carried 691,243 passengers in the vital June-August quarter, which was a rise of 7.7% on the passenger figures for 2006.

That meant it was the largest operator out of JLA, a crown Ryanair had claimed in May.

The Irish carrier saw a 30.1% rise in passenger numbers in June to August on the same period last year, carrying 684,509 passengers.

WizzAir, which specialises in budget routes to Eastern Europe, saw a 32.3% growth in its passenger numbers on summer 2006, carrying 61,099 holidaymakers to destinations such as Katowice, Warsaw and Gdansk.

Both Ryanair and Easyjet have announced new routes as a result, although some of the new destinations have been at the expense of existing services.

WizzAir, meanwhile, has now launched flights to Bucharest in Romania and will make its Gdansk route daily from March 2008.

Passenger throughput for the three months showed an increase of 13.7% for the airport, with 1.6m passengers passing through the airport compared with 1.4m in the same three months in 2006.

A spokesman for JLA said airlines and airport alike were pleased with the results.

He said: “Easyjet experienced some excellent load factors throughout the summer season, including the routes on which they now directly complete with Ryanair – Alicante, Palma and Krakow.

“Ryanair’s throughput represents an increase of 30.1% on the same three months in the prior year.

Ryanair continue to deliver excellent growth from Liverpool, although some of their domestic routes have struggled to achieve their budgeted load factors.

“Wizz believe that there will be further growth in 2008 for Wizz services from Liverpool.” The booming numbers using budget airlines is in contrast to the numbers using traditional package holiday charter flights.

The number of people travelling on flights from companies such as Thomas Cook and MyTravel fell 6.3%, although the airport said this reflected national trends.

The spokesman added: “On a positive note, the independent charter operators have reported a strong season to date from Liverpool and a number of flights to the Turkish beach resorts have been operated by larger than originally anticipated aircraft on most departures.”