Passengers passing through some of the UK’s busiest airports have fallen dramatically compared with the same period last year.

New figures show that Gatwick saw a 17.7% drop in passengers, Stansted a 15.9% decrease, Glasgow 13% and Southampton dropped 12.3%, while Heathrow saw a relatively smaller decline of 7.5%.

Worst affected area was the North Atlantic where passenger numbers dropped a staggering 17.6%, European scheduled flights witnessed an 11% reduction and UK internal flights dropped by 8.6%.

However South America, India and the Middle East all showed slight increases in passengers flying their way.

BAA (British Airport Authority) stated the fact that the Easter period fell in March last year as opposed to April this year was a major contributing factor to these figures.