AppId is over the quota
Data for the UK economy over the last few months has been pretty gloomy with growth forecasts lowered from around 1.5% to less than 1% with only 0.1% expected for the last two quarters. Some economic commentators are now saying there is even a possibility of the economy falling back into recession.
These forecasts are based on negative retail figures, rising unemployment, ongoing European debt crisis and falling management supply figures.
Despite all these gloomy figures UK airports apart from Stansted are all doing surprisingly well with Gatwick in particular showing good increases. Passenger numbers have been falling consistently since the recession was declared in September 2008 but 2011 is the first year when ground has been regained on a sustained basis.
Gatwick's figures for August were exceptional with a rise of 3.6% resulting in more than 132,000 passengers passing through the airport for the month compared with the same time last year with a 4% increase seen for the first 7 months of 2011.
Prior to 2009 British Airports Authority owned the London airports of Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted with only the much smaller Luton Airport offering any sort of competition.
The owners of Virgin and Ryanair Airlines in particular complained that BAA's virtual monopoly of owing the biggest 3 UK airports left customers and airlines alike in the south-east with no real options. The Competition Committee following several years of investigation eventually forced BAA to put Gatwick up for sale and this appears to have been the catalyst for the improved performance.
Since the buyout Global Infrastructures Partners the new owners have announced a £1 billion spending programme aimed at taking annual passenger numbers from £32 million to over 40 million. To do this they would have to attract more airlines from other airports, increase the number of destinations and the frequency of flights to existing routes.
Gatwick's baggage handling has come in for some fierce criticism from customers due mostly to frequent breakdowns with long queues forming at both check in and at the collection carousels. The current systems at both terminals are now quite dated and a large part of this investment will include new systems for both terminals with remote monitoring of problems rather than manually searching the belts to locate the problem.
Gatwick have highlighted that travellers want to spend as little time as possible queuing and see this as a key area to make the airport the number one choice when booking a holiday. Work is about to start but will take until 2015 to complete at an estimated cost of £200 million.
Another important areas that airlines look for is load factors which means in lay mans terms the average number of seats occupied and for the month of August, Gatwick achieved its highest ever load factor of 88.4% a rise of 1.4%.
If airlines are more likely to fill their planes by flying out of Gatwick, then quite clearly more airlines will be attracted to using this airport as its hub. AirAsiaX the low cost Malaysian airline have announced that they intend to move from Stansted this October and will offer 6 flights a week to Kuala Lumpur with onward connections to Indonesia and Thailand
Vietnam Airlines and Air Nigeria have both chosen to base their new flights to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh and Lagos to operate from Gatwick. This follows Norwegian Air Shuttle who has moved its entire operation from Stansted to Gatwick, while airberlin has transferred key business travel destinations from Stansted to Gatwick. British Airways have moved the Mauritius flight from Heathrow and importantly the low cost flyer easyjet has opened up 18 new routes based at Gatwick.
On the downside, as Gatwick continues to grow more pressure will be placed upon the existing Gatwick airport parking that is available both on and off airport because despite the governments best efforts the fact remains that travellers simply prefer to use their car rather than public transport. Lugging baggage through a rail or bus terminus that often requires one or more connections cannot compete with the convenience of a car that does all the donkey work for you.
Land at the airport is at a premium and the chances of getting planning for an off airport car park close to Gatwick is very slim. One area that continues to grow is the building of hotels close to the airport with parking included but this will not be sufficient to fill the void for more parking places.
the author is the owner of flypark.co.uk who are able to offerr a vast selection of parking options and Gatwick Hotels with Parking included to meet all budgets.
