Festival Fringe helps propel 12% jump in Edinburgh Airport figures
The popularity of this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe helped the city's airport record a near 12% jump in its August passenger numbers.
The popularity of this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe helped the city's airport record a near 12% jump in its August passenger numbers.
Edinburgh Airport saw 1,296,189 travellers pass through its doors last month, new figures show.
Bosses said that represented an 11.9% increase on the same month the previous year, with growth in both international (18.4%) and domestic passengers (2.1%) taking the airport to its second-busiest month.
Airport chief executive Gordon Dewar pointed to the success of this summer's festival season as he welcomed the latest numbers.
The Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society recently announced that an estimated 2.47 million tickets had been issued for shows across Scotland's capital, reflecting a 7.7% increase compared with tickets issued by the same point the year before.
Mr Dewar said: "The success of this year's Edinburgh Festival Fringe - with tickets issued up nearly 8% on 2015 - gives a strong indication of the growing draw of Edinburgh.
"This summer at Edinburgh Airport we have welcomed more people into Scotland than ever before and people at home have better direct links with the rest of the world. This is great news for inbound tourism, the Scottish economy and jobs.
"This underlines the ongoing work we are doing at Edinburgh Airport to adapt and accommodate the ever-increasing number of people wanting to fly in and out of Edinburgh."
Edinburgh Airport apologised last week after almost 200 responses to a public consultation on altering flight paths above the capital were lost.
Officials extended the consultation's closing date by one week, to the end of Monday September 19, to allow people to resubmit their feedback.
Meanwhile, Glasgow Airport recorded its busiest summer yet and remains on course to have its busiest-ever year.
More than 943,000 passengers used the hub in August, representing a 7.4% increase on the same point last year.
Domestic traffic grew by more than 8% during August , while international traffic increased by over 6%.
The figures mean that almost three million passengers used Glasgow Airport during the peak summer months of June, July and August, officials said.
Managing director Amanda McMillan said: "August was an extremely busy month for the airport.
"We welcomed Scotland's first direct service with Seoul which saw more than 1,000 South Korean tourists use Glasgow as a gateway to Scotland, and events such as the World Pipe Band Championships also brought thousands of visitors to the city."