BAA, the owner and operator of seven British airports among others, said traffic at its UK airports fell for12 straight months in March as the global economic downturn hits the travel industry, mainly in the business and leisure travel.

BAA's UK airports handled a total of 10.6 million passengers in March, a reduction of 11.3 per cent against the same month last year with around 2-3 per cent of the reduction attributed to the Easter travel peak, which was in March last year while this year it fell in April.

Nevertheless, the decrease in March was in the range of 8 – 9 per with European scheduled traffic was down by 11.0 per cent and UK domestic by 8.6 per cent.

North Atlantic traffic was 17.6 per cent lower while other long haul routes recorded a collective drop of 5.6 per cent

But in the gloom of declining passenger traffic elsewhere, passenger traffic to India increased by 1.8 per cent, 0.1 per cent to the Middle East and 8.9 per cent to South America.

Among individual airports, Heathrow was the most resilient, with traffic declining by only 7.5 per cent. This was partly because of Heathrow's greater share of stronger long-haul markets, but is also due to rising numbers of transfer passengers, which underpin the airport's role as the UK's hub airport.

At other individual airports, not surprisingly it was those with the largest elements of leisure traffic which experienced the biggest traffic reductions in March. Gatwick was down by 17.7 per cent, Stansted by 15.9 per cent, Glasgow by 13.0 per cent and Southampton by 12.3 per cent.

In total, the number of air transport movements at BAA airports was down 4.1 per cent compared to March last year, however, Heathrow and Aberdeen, both had increases of 1.7 per cent and 1.2 per cent respectively.

BAA, owned and operated by a consortium led by Spanish firm Ferrovial specialising in infrastructure, will be forced to sell three of the seven UK airports it owns after the UK Competition Commission held that BAA held a monopoly over London and Scotland airports.

In the next two years, BAA will have to sell Gatwick, Stansted and either Glasgow or Edinburgh airports.

The sale of these three airports is likely to fetch BAA about £3.5 billion to £4 billion.