Travel: Airport exodus is weatherproof

The number of people passing through Britain's major airports rose again last month, despite bad weather hitting flights, it was announced yesterday. BAA handled 6.7 million passengers at its seven airports in January 1997 - a 5.2 per cent rise on the January 1996 figure. The annual increase would have been around 6 per cent were it not for fog affecting some London flights.

Despite this, Stansted enjoyed an 11.4 per cent increase last month, while numbers at Gatwick were up 9 per cent, at Heathrow by 3 per cent and at Southampton up by 3.9 per cent. Edinburgh airport handled 11.9 per cent more passengers in January.

Across the board, numbers on North Atlantic routes were up by 12.2 per cent and other long haul routes rose by 7.9 per cent. Domestic traffic increased 4.5 per cent, with Edinburgh's domestic numbers doing particularly well - rising by 15.5 per cent.