Busiest ever year for a Scottish airport

Edinburgh Airport has recorded the busiest ever year for a Scottish airport with more than 14 million people passing through in 2018.

A total of 14,310,403 people passed through Scotland’s busiest airport last year, up 6.5% on the previous year. International growth was up 9.5% and domestic growth up almost 2%.

It comes after the airport reached 1 million passengers in December for the first time ever as 1,027,125 people passed through – an 11% increase on December 2017.

Gordon Dewar, Chief Executive of Edinburgh Airport said:

“We’re delighted to deliver yet another record year for a Scottish airport which highlights the incredible appetite there is for travel to and from Scotland.

“From the Middle East to the Far East and Europe to America, we offer more than 150 destinations from Edinburgh and it’s that variety of choice which is driving our growth. Be it a city break in Copenhagen, a business conference in London or a family holiday to Dubai, we are catering across the spectrum.

“Our success is also down to our airline and business partners, and of course our staff who keep airport operations running smoothly. It is our staff who are the unsung heroes who make every day a big day for someone at our airport and I thank them for the work that they do.

“New routes and destinations for 2019 have already been announced and we’ll continue to add growth where we can. The uncertainty around Brexit obviously poses challenges and it’s crucial that we at least preserve access to that single aviation market that allows flights to pass freely through European skies, connecting Scotland to the whole of Europe. We also need to see movement on the pledge to cut Air Passenger Duty so we can continue to be competitive against other nations and harness the full potential of our industry and bolster the economy through tourism.

“There’s also infrastructure challenges such as our access road, a price we have to pay for our continued growth. We’re working on short and long-term solutions and that planning to improve access is something that will continue as we look ahead to what we hope is another successful year.”