THE director of Ronaldsway Airport has said the current air travel market is "challenging" after passenger numbers dropped by almost five percent.
Passenger numbers for March are 4.8 percent less than those in March last year – a fall of almost 2,800 passengers.
This follows a 3.6 percent decrease in passengers travelling through Ronaldsway in February.
Ann Reynolds said the economic issues that are being addressed in the UK have hit the pockets of many potential visitors to the Island.
She said: "We began to see evidence of a reversal of the expected recovery in the first few weeks of 2011. This trend has been reflected throughout many UK regional airports over recent months, so the Isle of Man is not alone in the struggle to regenerate traffic after a very tough two or three years.
"Indeed in February more than 15 UK regional airports saw decreases of about the same or greater than that of the Isle of Man so most of us are currently finding the air travel market pretty challenging."
The London routes saw the greatest decrease with over 1,000 fewer passengers flying to the south-west of England. The midlands also saw a fall of over 900 passengers. North-east England was down by over 400 passengers with the Scottish route falling by around 230 passengers during the month.
There was also a small decrease in traffic to the north-west region, following a generally positive trend that had been established since the summer last year.
Last month's figures do show a 41.5 percent increase in passengers using the Belfast City route – which was more passengers than the Belfast City and Belfast International routes combined in 2010.
The Dublin route also saw a small increase and the London Gatwick service carried four percent more passengers. The Liverpool route, operated by Flybe and easyJet carried 1,640 more passengers than the same time period last year – an increase of more than 15 percent.
Ann continued: "I think this is fair to say that 2011 is unlikely to bring us the results that we had hoped for, primarily because of the continued economic issues that are being addressed in UK which have hit the pockets of many potential visitors to the Island.
"However I still expect the overall trend to ultimately show an improvement and we will inevitably be able to see increases over what was a highly disruptive year in 2010.
"At this stage the summer programs generally look very encouraging with additional capacity being planned to boost the north-west traffic, a huge improvement to the Southampton route - making it a daily service which operates through to Brussels - and a substantial increase in holiday flights available from the Island."
Infrastructure Minister Phil Gawne MHK said: "Our primary market for visitor traffic is the UK and, as many feel the squeeze on their wallets, this will naturally reflect upon their ability to take short breaks, and this is bound to affect Isle of Man air passenger numbers.
"However air fares to the Island remain highly competitive and we have a wide choice of UK departure points. This makes the Isle of Man a very attractive place indeed for the last minute, short stay holiday and I am sure that this market will see a revival as people look for a good value break."
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