Foot-and-mouth causes drop in foreign visitors
16 May 2001
Visitors to the UK fell by nearly 6% during April, compared with the same period last year. Foot-and-mouth disease is being blamed for the slump.
New figures from airport operator BAA show that its seven UK airports, including Heathrow, Gatwick, and Stansted, handled 10.2 million passengers in April, an increase of 1% on April 2000.
There was a 6.7% increase in the number of domestic travellers (including those from the Channel Islands). The number of passengers from Europe grew by 3.4%.
But the volume of visitors coming via the North Atlantic fell by 7.4%.
Taking into account other long haul flights and European charter flights, the number of non-domestic travellers using BAA's UK airports in April fell by 5.7%.
