North Sea woes hit Aberdeen airport as Edinburgh and Glasgow soar

The downturn in the North Sea oil and gas industry has left Aberdeen Airport trailing southern hubs in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

Both Edinburgh Airport and Glasgow Airport reported bumper months for May while Aberdeen saw traffic drop 8.1 per cent to 300,871.

The news comes just a day after figures revealed the Granite City’s hotel industry had also began to feel the effects of the downturn.

Carol Benzie, the airport’s managing director, said: “We have seen a reduction in traffic across all three sectors – helicopters, international and domestic – last month due to the impact of the cost efficiencies currently being driven throughout the oil and gas sector.”

Meanwhile, more than one million passengers passed through Edinburgh Airport in May – an increase of 9.3 per cent on the year before.

The result constituted a record for the month for the airport which chief executive Gordon Dewar hailed as “phenomenal”.

He added: “Increased capacity on routes to Paris, Basel, Lisbon and Madrid with Easyjet, as well as Qatar Airways increasing their Doha service to daily at the beginning of May and the launch of the new American Airlines service to JFK have all meant more passengers through our doors.”

While not a record, May did see Glasgow register its busiest month in seven years, with passenger numbers soaring 13.3 per cent year-on-year to 785,063.

Managing director Amanda Mcmillan said: “Our growth in 2015 has been truly unprecedented, reflected in the fact we’ve enjoyed consistent double-digit increases in our passenger numbers every month since November.”

South of the border, Heathrow and Gatwick, which are waiting to hear which will be chosen as the site for a new runway, each announced record-breaking figures.

Heathrow had its best-ever May this year, with 6.34 million passengers passing through the terminals of the west London airport – a 1.7 per cent rise on the same month last year.

Gatwick also had a record-breaking May, with traffic at the West Sussex airport rising 5.8 per cent to 3.6 million.