Over 1.5 million passengers travelled through Edinburgh Airport in July making it the busiest ever at any Scottish airport. It was also an increase of 6.3% on July last year.
This applied to both domestic and international travel with new routes from easyjet and more passengers carried by Flybe. Popular international destinations included transatlantic routes, Spain, Greece, Poland and many city destinations in Europe and farther afield.
Gordon Dewar, Chief Executive of Edinburgh Airport said: “These are fantastic figures for the airport, for Edinburgh and for Scotland, and they show an increase in passenger demand of 60% over the past 5 years – that is phenomenal growth and easily makes us one of Europe’s fasting growing airports.
“That growth is something we should be proud of as it delivers wide-ranging benefits for the country through job creation, tourism spend and business growth, but it also means we need to keep growing our infrastructure and build that additional capacity to cater for those increased numbers.
“We have invested huge sums already to keep up with that demand and are now for the first time in a position where we’re ahead of that curve thanks to a terminal expansion which will see us grow our passenger capacity to more than 17 million. That headroom is welcome and is a position we want to stay in and aim to do so through continued investment.
“Part of that wider picture is the need for improvements to the external infrastructure as well and that is an ongoing discussion with various partners as we must change and grow to maximise the opportunities that the airport brings.
“This extension is the beginning of a longer period of investment in our airport. Growth is our main strategic challenge and we will develop in order to enable growth for Edinburgh and Scotland as a whole.”
Founding Editor of The Edinburgh Reporter.
Edinburgh-born multimedia journalist and iPhoneographer.
