The need for urgent airport expansion by 2030 could be diminished by Brexit, according to a new study suggesting the number of UK air passengers could be around 25 million fewer than forecast by government – or more than the entire annual traffic of Stansted. They forecast that a hard Brexit will exacerbate an imminent loss in demand and leave passenger traffic around 8-9% below that resulting from a soft Brexit – the “most benign but arguably least likely scenario”, according to Iata. Iata’s forecast of 257 million UK flyers would equate to a total of just over 290 million passengers, including those transferring from one flight to another, by 2030. This claim was repeated this week by the transport secretary Chris Grayling at the Commons transport select committee. Iata’s analysts said that reduced air capacity to and from the EU would “be expected to increase directly the cost of air travel with the bloc”.

Source: The Guardian October 18, 2016 17:39 UTC