In an additional devastating blow for the nation’s aviation industry, Edinburgh Airport has verified it recorded its cheapest quantity of passengers considering that 1995 around the earlier 12 months.
The airport taken care of a small below 3.5million travellers in 2020, a 76 for each cent lower on the former 12 months that is estimated to have price tag the Scottish financial system £1billion and triggered 21,000 people today to lose their jobs.
Bosses at the airport have expressed fears that there is “no clear path to recovery” outside of the pandemic.
“The slide in our passenger numbers is only 1 reflection of the long-expression damage being inflicted by Covid-19 on Scotland’s economic climate and its social cloth, but it is a stressing 1 and there is no crystal clear route to recovery,” stated Gordon Dewar, chief executive of Edinburgh Airport.
“Nobody really should assume that when the pandemic subsides, lifestyle will go back to standard. At the airport, we will be starting from a reduced stage of action not recorded here since 1995 and the option of airlines and places may possibly be radically diverse to those we experienced labored hard to make before 2020 and on which a lot of men and women rely for bringing people to Scotland and for holiday seasons and small business, including exports.”