New survey reveals traveller habits

The Civil Aviation Authority has released its 2007 air passenger survey, which questioned more than 210,000 departing travellers at gateways including Heathrow Airport, Gatwick Airport and Stansted Airport, revealing the habits and characteristics of people flying from the UK.

Last year saw 137 million passengers use one of the four major London airports, while 29 million people flew from the sampled regional gateways, which included Liverpool Airport and Manchester Airport.

Business passengers accounted for 36 per cent of all passengers at London Heathrow last year, compared to 24 per cent at Humberside Airport, 21 per cent at Luton Airport and 19 per cent at Stansted Airport.

Doncaster-Sheffield Airport had the highest proportion of leisure passengers last year, at 94 per cent, followed by Liverpool Airport (89 per cent), Gatwick Airport (82 per cent) and Stansted Airport (81 per cent).

People travelling to visit friends made up 46 per cent of Stansted's total number of passengers, compared to 43 per cent at both Luton and Liverpool.

Public transport was a popular option at London hubs, with 45 per cent of travellers at Stansted and 38 per cent at Heathrow using public services to get to the airport, compared to only 14 per cent at Liverpool and 11 per cent at Manchester.

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