London Oxford Airport reports busiest weekend to date.

Thursday 7th July 2011

London Oxford Airport, UK handled over 100 commercial movements last weekend, experiencing its busiest ever two days on record for both business aviation and scheduled traffic. The sunny weather, the Henley Regatta and a number of local celebrity functions, including Kate Moss' wedding, all contributed to a doubling of normal weekend business aviation activity at the airport. Gulfstreams, Globals and chartered airliners filled the ramp in what was a useful trial run before next year's Olympics. London Oxford would normally expect to handle around 20 business aviation movements per day.

July is likely to be the year's peak month for Oxford with the Silverstone Grand Prix traffic and then the CLA Game Fair later in the month, which will bring in an anticipated 140,000 visitors just a mile up the road at Blenheim Palace. Typically 50 'Flying Farmers' and other grand estate owners fly in for the event. Regular charter flights to Jersey which commenced at the end of May are consistently recording very high load factors.

"This buoyant business is highly satisfying and demonstrates the attraction of our airport to both business/VIP and commercial travellers. Last weekend complemented a peak month of business aviation activity in June which saw arrivals from all over the globe, with the majority of traffic to outbound Mediterranean destinations. With the steady growth in business aviation, we expect this trend to continue for some time," said James Dillon-Godfray, Business Development Director at London Oxford Airport.

London Oxford Airport recently took the decision to install the latest generation radar system at the airport. The primary and secondary (Mode-S, MSSR) surveillance radar system, supplied by Thales with project management by NATS will enable more efficient transits through local airspace as well as increase the throughput of IFR flight activity. It is anticipated that the new system will be fully operational in good time ahead of the 2012 Olympic Games, at which point a further considerable increase in demand for capacity is anticipated.

About London Oxford Airport:

London Oxford Airport is wholly owned by the Reuben Brothers. Their investment activities include private equity and real estate ownership and development. Investments are predominantly based in the United Kingdom and Europe. Businesses include shopping centres, mixed use commercial real estate, data centres, race courses, public houses, hotels and development projects.

www.oxfordairport.co.uk