It was the first annual decline since 1991 and only the fourth since the end of the Second World War.
The decline was most marked in the last quarter of 2008, with 4m fewer passengers handled from October to December 2008 than in the same months of 2007.
November saw the biggest decrease during the year (8.9%) followed by December (7.9%).
Dr Harry Bush, CAA group director of economic regulation, commented: ‘The fall in passenger numbers is to be expected in light of the worsening economic situation during 2008.
‘The combination of business failures, such as those of XL Leisure Group and Zoom Airlines, together with a fluctuating oil price and the economic downturn has had a marked effect on the numbers of trips being taken.
‘The early indications are that the larger falls seen in the last quarter of 2008 are continuing into the New Year, with the prospect of declining traffic in 2009 overall, which, if it occurs, will be the first time since World War Two that UK passenger numbers have fallen for two consecutive years.
‘Current economic trends make this outcome more likely than not.’
The London airports – Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton and London City – saw a combined fall of 2% last year, with the biggest decline in both absolute and percentage terms at Stansted, where passenger numbers dropped by 1.4m or 6%.
In contrast, Luton handled an additional 255k passengers or 2.6% more than in 2007, while London City reported its fifth consecutive year of double-digit growth. The Docklands airport saw a 12% overall increase – although growth slowed to just 2% in Q408 – and now accounts for 2.4% of all London passengers.
At the 52 regional airports surveyed, traffic contracted by 1.8% to 98m passengers last year. Manchester, the UK’s biggest regional airport, saw passenger numbers fall by 3.8% to 21.1m, whereas Birmingham grew by 4.8% to 9.6m.
In 2008, 25m passengers took domestic flights, 4.8% or 1.2m fewer than in 2007. The CAA said this continued a trend that has been apparent for a number of years, driven in part by greater competition with domestic rail services.
The majority (137m) of the UK airport passengers last year were bound for, or arriving from, geographical Europe, representing a 0.9% fall from 2007.
Within this, the biggest absolute increase was in passengers to and from Poland (+671k or 15.4%). The biggest fall, meanwhile, was seen by Spain (including the Canary Islands), where passenger numbers dropped by 978k or 2.8%.
There were 21.7m passengers on flights to and from North America last year, down 3.3% from 2007. Passengers travelling to and from international destinations outside Europe and North America totalled 29.6m, down 0.6%.
Finally, charter passenger numbers continued to decline, by 9.3% or 3m to 29m.
Click here to go to the 2008 Airport Statistics page on the CAA’s website, from where full details may be downloaded.
See also:
CAA to hit Stansted where it hurts (13/03/2009)
Speakman says ‘about time’ to Govt airport plan (10/03/2009)
First decline in low-cost traffic for 15 years (28/01/2009)
BAA reports first decline since 2001 (15/01/2009)
NATS reports first fall since 9/11 (12/08/2008)