Ronaldsway passenger figures for December 2009 were down on the corresponding period in 2008, Isle of Man Airport has revealed.

This is thought to have been due to prolonged bad weather conditions.

58,341 passengers passed through the Airport - 348 less than the previous December.  The year end passenger total was 721,000, a drop of 5.45% on 2008. 

Airport Director Ann Reynolds has maintained that this annual decline is significantly better than that of many UK airports, given the impact of the economic downturn on the aviation industry.

She also remains pleased with the overall progress that the Airport is making towards securing growth for 2010: "Many of our UK destination airports suffered badly from snow and ice at a critical time for the travelling public - shortly before Christmas.

"As a result, several flights were cancelled and a number of passengers had to re-think their travel arrangements. 

"Fortunately, we remained fully operational throughout the period and as soon as the UK airports opened, flights were able to resume.  However, the disruption ultimately proved to have some effect upon our monthly passenger outturn."

As Manchester and Gatwick Airports were particularly badly hit by the weather, it was these routes that saw the major decreases, with combined passengers more than 3,500 lower than December 2008.

The North West routes as a whole were down by 5.3%, but, due to the increase in the London City traffic – by almost 4,500 passengers – the London market as a whole increased by 9.2%.

The route to Dublin also performed well, with Aer Arann carrying over 6% more passengers and, although passengers to Birmingham were slightly down, Flybe carried over 23% more than last December.

Manx2 saw increases on their Blackpool, Belfast City, East Midlands and Newcastle routes, the latter generating the highest number of passengers to the North East destination for 21 months. 

Charter traffic was also more buoyant, with over 50% more passengers, chiefly due to the Regency pre-Christmas shopping flight to Bruges, a charter operation so successful that additional flights are planned for 2010. 

Looking ahead to 2010, current forecasts are for traffic to recover to about 2008 levels.

"All the indications are that this winter will continue to be challenging period for the Airport and our airlines, despite a slow recovery," added Ann.

"But I remain confident that the coming year will gather momentum with regular monthly increases experienced by the early summer."