Scotland’s biggest airports welcomed record numbers of passengers in May.
Edinburgh Airport’s latest figures show 1,231,712 passengers passed through its doors, representing a 10.8% increase on May 2016’s statistics.
Airport chiefs say May this year was the third busiest month on record, just behind July 2016’s total of 1,332,142 passengers and the 1,296,087 welcomed in August last year.
The largest increase was in international passenger numbers which were up from 662,565 in May last year to 766,094 in 2017 – a leap of 15.6%.
Gordon Dewar, chief executive of Edinburgh Airport, said: “This is the busiest May on record and shows that our passengers are responding to greater choice at Edinburgh Airport.
Aberdeen International Airport saw an increase in both domestic and international passenger numbers for May after 274,263 people travelled through the hub.
Domestic and international traffic was up 4.2% and 1.4% during last month. The increases, airport chiefs said, were partly driven by new routes to Faro, Malaga and Alicante and a new Heathrow service operated by Flybe.
Carol Benzie, managing director of Aberdeen International Airport, said: “It is very encouraging to see both our international and domestic routes continue to perform well as we head into the peak summer season.
“It’s at this time of year that we expect to see an increase in demand for a number of the new routes we’ve introduced over the last year; particularly our new sun destinations.
“These new summer routes are already proving highly popular with local holiday-makers, with many flights departing at passenger capacity.”
