British post healthy and only rise in visitors

Passenger traffic at Palma airport appears to have finally turned the corner and is on the up again. After a winter of month-on-month decline, figures released yesterday for March show a 2.43 per cent increase on March last year and the main reason was last month's surge in the number of British passengers. The Spanish and especially German market, dragged the figures down. The German market is still showing little signs of recovering, but the British are returning to Majorca in droves. Son San Joan airport has welcomed the latest report after passengers figures in January were down 12.40 per cent and February by 9.57 per cent in comparison to last year. The number of Germans was down 1.13 per cent last year and since January, the number of German passengers is down 9.4 per cent on last year. The Spanish market is down 0.59 per cent, nearly five per cent in total since January, but the British market posted an increase in passengers of 21.50 per cent last month. The German do however dominate the passenger figures, despite the decline. The airport handled 453.149 German passengers in March compared to 423.956 Spanish and 151.034 Britons. But the sudden revival in the British market has been welcomed by the airport and tourism authorities. Leading tour operators said this week that the Balearic package holiday market was showing signs of finally picking up.