Gatwick airport is banking on airlines moving toward more point-to-point long-haul traffic in the London gateway’s aim to grow its intercontinental network.
The three airline alliances – Oneworld, SkyTeam and Star Alliance – have made it clear that none of them are considering a move from Heathrow to Gatwick, the latter’s operating chief Guy Stephenson says.
With its single runway, the airport has not enough capacity to accommodate any of the alliances, says Stephenson. But he adds that Gatwick’s expansion plan with a second runway is not built around attracting any of the alliances, because they will “highly likely” need to change their business models as classic hub-and-spoke networks “will play a lesser than a bigger role” in future.
With growing deployment of new-generation aircraft, such as the Boeing 787 and Airbus A350, he argues airlines will move toward more point-to-point long-haul traffic. This should consequently make secondary airports, such as Gatwick, more attractive as a long-haul destination.
The challenge is to integrate incoming long-haul carriers with the operations of local airlines. At the moment, the “away-based” airlines “fit well” in-between peak traffic periods of carriers, such as EasyJet, he says. But the airport is aiming for more capacity.
With the present one-runway system, the airport plans to grow its traffic volume from an expected 38 million passengers in the current year to 45-47 million travellers in 2025, says Stephenson. That growth plan would partly depend on deployment of larger aircraft, however.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
