Passenger figures at British airports down in 2008

The era of constantly rising air passenger numbers in Britain appears to have come to an end in 2008 which marked the first decline in passenger figures in 17 years, statistics published Monday showed.The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) said passenger numbers fell by 1.9 per cent to 235 million over the whole of 2008, compared with the previous year.
The decline had been especially sharp in November and December of 2008, and was expected to continue in 2009. It is the first annual fall in passenger traffic in and out of Britains main airports since 1991. The figures revealed that London airports, including Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton and London City, experienced an overall annual fall in passenger figures of 2 per cent.