UK airports group BAA – which owns London airports Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted as well as Southampton in Southern England and Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen in Scotland – said cargo traffic showed a slower rate of decline in July, but was still down 11.7 per cent on the year. Cargo volumes at its airports are down 17 per cent for the first seven months of 2009 compared with a year earlier.

Its airports also handled 14.5 million passengers in July, down just 2.4 per cent on July 2008, following declines of 5.9 per cent in June and 7.3 per cent in May.

BAA said European and long-haul traffic, excluding the Atlantic routes, grew at its airports in July, but UK domestic traffic and charter traffic continued to fall, and trans-Atlantic traffic was down eight per cent on the year, but improved to only a 2.1 per cent drop in July.

The Airports Council International has said it is keeping its forecast for a 16 per cent decline in cargo and an eight per cent fall in passenger numbers at European airports during the whole of 2009.

“More than 85 per cent of European airports are suffering falls in traffic so far this year. Traffic recovery is not yet in sight, although we may have hit the bottom,” ACI Europe director general Olivier Jankovec said.