March 2009 passenger figures

Monarch launched a new service to Larnaca at the end of the month
Birmingham International Airport handled 674,301 passengers

during March 2009 - a fall of 7.7% on the previous year

.
Paul Kehoe, Birmingham Airport's Chief Executive Officer,

explains: "These latest statistics again underline the challenging

economic environment we are facing at the moment, conditions

that are affecting the whole of the aviation industry, both here

and abroad. I have always said that this year will be a testing

one, but let's not forget that Birmingham is performing better

than the majority of other UK airports and we continue

to see the launch of new routes and airlines

from the Midlands' premier airport"
.
"During March we saw a 7.7% fall in traffic compared to 2008,
which mirrors the performance of February, illustrating the
resilience of Birmingham when compared to other airports,
which have seen a month-on-month downward trend"
.
"In recent weeks we have been able to celebrate anumber

of positive announcements, among them the granting of

planning permission for a runway extension by Solihull

Metropolitan Borough Council, Emirates' decision to

increase capacity to Dubai, and the launch of Monarch's

Larnaca and bmi regional's Aberdeen services, all

representing great news for local travellers"
.
During March significant growth was achieved on

scheduled flights to destinations including -

Inverness (+107%), Krakow (+92.1%), Shannon (+56.9%),

Prague (+46.3%), Alicante (+21.8%), Grenoble (+18.8%),

Malaga (+15.6%), Dubai (+6.8%), Hamburg (+5.5%)

and Dublin (+1.6%)
.
Charter traffic which experienced growth included -

Egypt (+60.5%) and Mexico (+14.7%)
.
Scheduled traffic accounted for 83.5% of the total

passenger traffic in March whilst charter passengers

made up the remaining 16.5%

.

Thursday 16 April 2009