Below is an extract from Business Traveller's comprehensive online guide to Gatwick airport. To download the free guide in full, including maps, dining, shopping, parking, hotels, lounges and future developments, click here.
The billion pound project
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As the first “victim” of the BAA sell-off, you would forgive Gatwick for feeling vulnerable. Being removed from the bosom of the UK’s largest airport operator might have left another organisation feeling cut adrift but, in fact, the Sussex airport seems liberated. |
“Gatwick is fundamentally different in terms of the job we’re doing under the new ownership,” says Simon Edwards, airline business development manager for the airport. “We are competing for business in a way we weren’t before. The new owner [Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), owner of London City airport] wants a return on its investment, whereas with BAA, I think it’s fair to say the focus was very much on Heathrow. Doing my job before felt almost as if I had one hand tied behind my back, whereas now there is a real focus at board level. It’s such a refreshing change.”
For Angus McIntyre, head of airline business development, the change of hands in December 2009 has allowed Gatwick to take a fresh look at its raison d’être. “As part of BAA we were sort of happy with our position in as much as it worked from a group perspective – Heathrow was scheduled business services, Gatwick was point-to-point leisure, Stansted was low-cost. Take us out of that mix and all of a sudden it’s: ‘What do we want to be?’ Nobody’s saying we’re going to be the next Heathrow because that would be an unreasonable aspiration. Equally, we don’t want to be Stansted, so it’s about finding that middle ground.”
What this means is a greater focus on the business traveller – currently about 15 per cent of traffic. “We’ve put far more emphasis on the business-style/premium passenger,” McIntyre says. For Gatwick, the corporate market encompasses not only the traditional full-service airlines but the low-cost sector – Easyjet is now its largest carrier, with 33 per cent of the airport’s total slots. Second and third are BA and Thomson, with 17 per cent and 7 per cent respectively, demonstrating the three prongs of Gatwick’s business – low-cost, scheduled full-service and charter.
“Easyjet has come in and stolen the march on the traditional scheduled business market,” he says. “We’ve seen the low-cost model morph up from the no-frills offering of several years ago into a bit of a hybrid – you see that with Air Berlin and Norwegian.” The German carrier moved its Hanover and Nuremberg routes from Stansted in February, while Norwegian added a Helsinki service in May.
When it comes to capturing the business market, Gatwick has some distinct advantages. While it cannot compete with Heathrow in terms of connectivity and frequency of services, it boasts an affluent catchment area and excellent train links. What it hasn’t perhaps had is the state-of-the-art facilities to attract new carriers, but that is changing.
In June last year, GIP announced it would invest £1 billion in the airport’s infrastructure (building on a redevelopment project began by BAA in 2008). Scheduled to continue until 2014, the works involve revamping the South Terminal, now more than half a century old, and expanding the North Terminal, added in 1988.
On the ground, construction is well under way. In the South, a £31 million single-entrance forecourt aimed at speeding up the passenger’s journey to check-in is due to be finished by the end of March. The moving walkways from the station (trains to Gatwick arrive into the South) are being refurbished, brighter flooring is being laid in sections, to be finished by the end of the year, and £2.5 million is being spent on wayfinding, with unnecessary signage being taken down and the font sizes enlarged.
Plus, £170 million is being spent on a new baggage system that will allow passengers to drop their case at any vacant space in the terminal (dependent on their airline’s stipulations). This is being put in place in phases until late 2014.
The airport has also reconfigured Norwegian’s check-in zone, with self-service bag-drops and check-in kiosks so you can print your own label. Edwards says: “We worked hard to get Norwegian’s product right and they’re delighted.” (In the North, BA and Delta also have reconfigured check-in zones with kiosks, and the airport is talking to Easyjet about doing something similar.)
One of the centrepiece projects in the South is the spacious new security area. Some £45 million is being spent on security in total, with the three previous zones being replaced by a single area upstairs. It is being opened lane by lane – four were operational as we went to press, and there will be 19 by the time it is finished in October, including two premium lanes. “This is going to be the best security area in the world,” says Steve James, South Terminal programme development leader for capital projects, who reports that the new lanes are processing 250 people per hour, up from 160 with the old system.
First, passengers go through a “preparation area” with ironing-board-shaped tables for repacking bags, then put their boarding pass through London Underground-style self-service machines, where they can also scan mobile boarding passes. As James explains, lanes are longer than before so people have more time to take off their jackets and belts before reaching the conveyor. They will also be colour-coded to indicate the shortest queues. Meanwhile, a separate security area for families and those in need of special assistance is in place to speed up the process further. Airside, pier one will be replaced with a new fast-turnaround pier for short-haul aircraft by the end of 2014.
Zoom over to the North on the speedy new shuttle service, open since last July, and you’ll see changes afoot here too. Home to much of Gatwick’s scheduled traffic, the terminal handles 14 million passengers a year and the plan is to increase that to 17 million. The forecourt has, consequently, been moved further out, and the inter-connected £25 million eastern extension, which will add ticket desks and circulation space, is due to be completed in August or September – at which time check-in will be directly connected by a walkway to the fourth level of a new 1,200-space short-stay car park, open since April. (This level will cost more to park in.)
Security lanes like those in the South Terminal are being added, with two new ones just open, four to follow next summer and the remainder to be converted after that. The North terminal’s southern extension (yes, confusing…) will follow in October, adding check-in zones, self-service kiosks and bag-drops, and more carousels in arrivals.
By 2014, airside will have extra circulation space, dining and retail. Aircraft stands and gate rooms will be added to pier six, and it’s intended that another level will be added to pier five. Talks are ongoing about how to boost the terminal’s A380 facilities – the airport can currently only handle the superjumbo with remote stands rather than airbridges, which are a crucial component for many carriers.
Other additions in the North include a new No 1 Traveller lounge (there is also one in the South). Open since May, it’s a welcoming space that costs £25 to access (£20 online), with a business centre, spa, and free wifi, food and drink (see Loyalty, page 46. Download the full guide for more information on lounges).
Meanwhile, the train station is getting a £53 million upgrade to improve its aesthetics and add a platform, which will mean the Gatwick Express will have two dedicated platforms. The cosmetic work is due to be complete by the Olympics, with the major construction starting after.
The airport is also phasing in mobile printing facilities near gates heavily used by business travellers, and is working on what McIntyre calls “a fast-track arrivals product”.
With all this in place, Gatwick should be in a stronger position to attract new routes. It is well needed – the impact of the Open Skies agreement, which saw much of its US traffic defect to Heathrow, means Gatwick now has no direct link to New York, and Qatar Airways chief executive Akbar Al Baker told Business Traveller that the airline pulled its Gatwick services in May because “all the American feed we used to get there evaporated with Open Skies”.
Getting some of this market back is, understandably, a major focus: “The core markets we’re massively under-represented in are the US and Asia,” McIntyre says. Edwards adds: “We’ve got active dialogue around transatlantic routes. It’s one of our key targets and we’re having conversations about getting a New York route here.”
As for Asia, the airport is shortly expected to confirm a new four-times weekly Vietnam Airlines service starting in December, with two flights to Hanoi and two to Ho Chi Minh City. McIntyre says: “That is a gem of a route because it is a hotbed of both leisure and trade growth. We are excited because it will have a viral effect on that part of the world.”
Other long-haul routes on the way include a daily Air Nigeria service to Lagos from September 1. The airport is also in discussions with BA franchisee Comair about launching a Durban route, which would be the only direct service from London.
Easyjet, meanwhile, continues to grow its network, which now numbers 92 destinations. In March it added a thrice-weekly service to Amman, in April a four-times-a-week route to Seville, and in June a daily flight to Aberdeen. Jason Holt, Easyjet’s head of Gatwick, says: “The business take-up for Aberdeen is quite high because there’s a lot of oil business coming through the airport.” Other routes he says the carrier is pressing for are Cairo and Beirut.
He adds: “The problem with Gatwick is that it’s now becoming a slot-constrained airfield – it’s the busiest single runway airport in the world. That is going to present some issues so in terms of continued growth, it’s a question of us picking up slots as they become free.”
In the meantime, it is planning to improve its offering for business travellers at Gatwick by offering add-ons such as lounge access. “You can already purchase car parking online [with us] at a favourable price, and the same thing is going to happen with lounges – we’re talking to companies who wish to see if our passengers will purchase time in the lounges as an add-on.”
He adds: “For us, Gatwick is the intuitive business place at an affordable price.” The airport will no doubt be hoping a growing number of frequent flyers agree with him.
