Employee groups have given a guarded welcome to British Airways' decision to move more longhaul services from London/Heathrow to Gatwick, but negotiations over staff costs continue.
'We're reluctant to subsidise further growth at Heathrow through lower salaries at Gatwick,' says George Ryde, national secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union's civil aviation group. 'We're not prepared to use the low-cost, shorthaul arrangement for longhaul operations at Gatwick.'
BA says the move is primarily because it needs to find room to expand intercontinental services at Heathrow, but Gatwick's lower cost base has proved a decisive factor in making the hub profitable.
BA and its partners will serve 87 cities from Gatwick next year, enhancing connections opportunities; transfers already account for 28 per cent of the carrier's Gatwick traffic. The move from Heathrow in March 1996 of services to Lusaka, Entebbe, Nairobi, Dar Es Salaam, Harare and Lilongwe could add 170,000 passengers a year to BA's carryings at Gatwick, which are expected to reach 5.5 million in 1995.
BA also will add a Gatwick-Abu Dhabi-Colombo service in October 1995 and a Gatwick-Phoenix-San Diego flight from April 1996. BA plans services from Gatwick to Edinburgh, Stockholm, Zürich, Moscow, Bucharest, Baku and Sofia and its franchise partners will add flights to Bremen, Amsterdam and Berlin.
Meanwhile, the two-year inquiry into Heathrow's Terminal 5 continues. Given a favourable outcome, the first phase would open in 2003. Terminal 5 will be dedicated to BA services.
Source: Airline Business
