THE damage done at Scotland's major airports by industrial unrest within British Airways appears to have been minimal, according to figures released yesterday.
Latest traffic figures from BAA, the parent company of Scottish Airports, show that business was on the increase in July at Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen airports.
The news comes as part of a bumper month for BAA in which its seven airports handled a record 10,200,000 passengers. The figures also take BAA past the 100 million mark for the first time in a 12 month period.
Although all the airports their markets recorded increases it is still estimated that the BA strike resulted in a net loss of around 200,000 passengers, or 2% of the month's traffic.
Glasgow Airport was Scotland's star performer, recording a 12.6% growth to 686,700 passengers on the previous month with Aberdeen and Edinburgh showing 8.9% and 8.4% rises respectively.
July is traditionally the busiest month for holiday traffic and this was reflected in the fact that international passenger numbers rose by almost 20% compared with the same month last year.
The two most popular destinations for Scots remain Palma de Mallorca and Tenerife with passenger numbers rising to 86,979, compared with 70,123 in July 1996. The overall charter market to Spain from Scotland increased by 15%.
Managing director of Scottish Airports Vernon Murphy said: ''These figures reflect the remarkable resilience of the Scottish market. Despite the obvious effect of the British Airways dispute, all three airports delivered outstanding growth.''
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