Matthew Wood, Gatwick’s head of airline relations, explains to Tom Otley why the airport can challenge Heathrow for corporate passengers
What is your biggest challenge as head of airline relations for Gatwick?
I would say the single biggest challenge is one of perception, convincing both airlines and business travellers that Gatwick can serve business just as well - if not better - than Heathrow.
And how do you do that?
In a number of ways: firstly, by showing the airlines where their passengers originate their journey and where we are closer than Heathrow. One example would be London Bridge, which is 28 minutes to Gatwick and 47 minutes to Heathrow with two changes. We also have very quick links into Victoria, which takes 30 minutes.
The other challenge, which can be very frustrating, is that Heathrow is always saying “London is full, you can’t fly to London because there’s no slots” and it’s not true. Gatwick has around 20 per cent of its capacity available. Airlines such as Air China, Garuda, Lufthansa and Swiss are choosing Gatwick to expand, so we need to get the message out there that London is not full. It’s almost a stigma we need to overcome
But Heathrow trumpets the importance of being a hub, and you are not a hub.
I honestly don’t think being a hub is that important. Only 17 per cent of passengers connect over London. It’s the biggest aviation market in the world, serving more destinations than any other city in the world, it has more flights than any other city in the world and so it’s the biggest point-to-point market in the world. Heathrow and British Airways will always trump the hub model, but if you look at airlines like Air China, Cathay Pacific, Qatar, Emirates, generally when they come to London their passengers are ending their travel in London.
But some of those airlines you mention have only just left Gatwick.
Yes, but it’s the perception - both of the airlines and travellers - which becomes self-perpetuating: business travellers will say “I go on my holiday from Gatwick, but I fly on business out of Heathrow”. But why do they do that? We cover 44 of the top 50 business routes with multiple frequencies every day. We are slowly beginning to change the perception.
What about the situation with Korean Airways ending flights from Gatwick?
Korean left Gatwick because BA started a new daily Seoul service out of Heathrow and the market couldn’t take it so they came out. But Garuda, for instance, has chosen Gatwick as its main point because they understand they are not trying to connect passengers onward. As time goes on, more long-haul airlines will choose Gatwick.
Some of these carriers might not help with changing this perception?
A lot of our business routes are served by Easyjet and Easyjet’s business share is going up year-on-year. They have just signed an agreement with the Department for Transport on its contracts, and they are seeing that businesses realise that you can get into London quicker from Gatwick than Heathrow by train. The challenge is more on the long-haul airlines and we’re seeing success there.
Could you give an example of this success with attracting new airlines?
Turkish Airlines joined us 16 months ago and now has four flights a day out of Heathrow and three flights a day from Gatwick with a fourth being considered for next summer. They didn’t want to pay for the slots at Heathrow, and they see they can serve London better out of Gatwick.
But no airline is going to leave Heathrow to come to Gatwick?
No, but take Lufthansa: it has moved a daily Frankfurt service into Gatwick from Heathrow. I’d say that shows airlines are migrating their growth from Heathrow to Gatwick, while retaining a presence at Heathrow. Airlines know that no decision is going to be made on airport capacity for a couple of years and nothing is going to be built until the early 2020s so in the meantime they can grow at Gatwick.
Presumably you are less expensive for airlines than Heathrow?
Yes, by more than 50 per cent. On a daily long-haul service with a wide-bodied aircraft, an airline could save £1.2 million per year in aeronautical charges alone - in terms of passenger charges, landing and parking. Then there are the hold times in the air and that could be another £200,000 per annum. It takes 20 minutes longer getting into Heathrow – and it’s the airline’s biggest cost which is then passed on to the consumer either in terms of higher or lower fares.
If you look at the level of connectivity at Heathrow, you can see on London to New York, BA has around 50 per cent of its passengers connecting at Heathrow while Delta has only around 16 per cent , so the hub argument mainly applies to BA. No airline can utilise its hub at both ends. So Air China will choose to hub everything in Beijing, because they are bringing people via their hub into London. The hub argument is massively over-stated.
How many passengers use Gatwick as a hub?
It’s about one million per annum, which is a very small percentage – about seven per cent, but for us that’s not the challenge. What we at Gatwick need to do is capture the 600,000 passengers who fly to New York each year who are in Gatwick’s core catchment area and yet drive past the airport to fly from London Heathrow.
On the New York route, 14.5 per cent of current passengers currently travelling to New York originate in the core Gatwick catchment area. This is equal to 600,000 annual passengers that drive past Gatwick every year to fly from Heathrow, so that’s the opportunity for us.