Airport passenger numbers recover

Glasgow Airport said it hoped to announce more capacity increases

Glasgow Airport has said it is close to making up a shortfall of 180,000 passengers left by the collapse of the airline Zoom and holiday firm XL.

Zoom's capacity has been taken up by Canadian Affair and flyglobespan.

About 88% of unfilled seats from XL's collapse have been backfilled by Scottravel and Teleticket.

Zoom flew to five Canadian destinations from Glasgow while XL had more than a dozen routes to the Mediterranean and Orlando, Florida.

Glasgow Airport managing director Amanda McMillan said: "The loss of Zoom and XL Airways, within weeks of each other, was a significant blow for Glasgow Airport, and came at a difficult time for the airline industry.

"The credit squeeze and falling demand has seen airlines around the world reduce capacity and ground aircraft in order to save money.

"Despite these challenges, we have worked hard to recover the capacity lost by the demise of Zoom and XL, with impressive results.

"The gap left by Zoom has now been completely filled, and we are well on our way to backfilling the gap in the market left by XL, with a number of existing carriers already confirming increased programmes in 2009, and discussions on further capacity increases continuing."