Stansted launches consultation with leading businesses to help attract long-haul carriers
While in 2012 over 92% of Stansted’s passengers were travelling to or from the EU, and only a bit of 7% were to other countries, the airport’s management say they are keen to develop more long haul routes. They are calling on more than 300 businesses from across the East of England to work together to help attract direct long-haul services to the airport.The aim is to demonstrate to airlines that don’t currently use the airport that there is demand for more long haul business destinations from Stansted (apart from the huge majority of leisure trips – which are about 85% of Stansted’s passengers). The study will focus on companies that use long-haul air links but which currently have to travel from other London airports. Stansted says more than 46 million journeys are made each year by people living within Stansted’s catchment area, but only 12m of those flights are actually from the airport itself. Of the remaining 34 million flights, around 6 million involving flying long-haul to and from the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Australasia, and 4.6 m passengers take flights to and from North America. Andrew Harrison, MD of Stansted wants to “make long-haul destinations a reality from Stansted.”
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STANSTED 2012
Total terminal passengers – 16,255,600
Total EU – 15,097,106
Other – 1,158,498
% of total that erre to the EU – 92.3% (CAA data)
Recent CAA Air Passenger Survey showed Stansted had only 15% business passengers, and 85% leisure. (CAA Air Passenger Survey 2013)
Stansted: Airport launches consultation with leading businesses to help attract long-haul carriers
Andrew Harrison. managing director at Stansted Airport.
December 4, 2013 (EADT)
Stansted Airport is calling on businesses from across the East of England to work together to help attract direct long-haul services to the airport.
The airport plans to contact more than 300 of the region’s top companies to develop a detailed picture of their travel requirements which will provide a base of evidence to show airlines the strong demand for business travel within the region and the opportunities that exist to serve these routes from Stansted.
The study will focus on companies that use long-haul air links but which currently have to travel from other London airports.
More than 46 million journeys are made each year by people living within Stansted’s catchment but only 12m of those flights are actually from the airport itself. Of the remaining 34 million flights, around 6 million involving flying long-haul to and from the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Australasia, and 4.6 m passengers take flights to and from North America. [CAA data show which airports there were flights to, from Stansted, in 2012. There were virtually none, other than a handful of charter flights to a few destinations, outside Europe, Israel and North Africa. Link to CAA data ].
Andrew Harrison, Stansted’s managing director, said: “Businesses tell us again and again that they want Stansted to offer a network of long-haul routes that will connect them with their key customers and markets.
“Stansted serves an economic region that is strong and growing, reflecting the competitiveness of the businesses located here. We need to demonstrate this strength of demand to airlines who are not currently serving Stansted.
“This study will pinpoint the opportunities for airlines to serve long-haul demand directly from the areas closest to Stansted. Armed with this information, we can work with airlines to bring these services here.
“So we’re calling on businesses in the region to work with us to share information about where they fly to because, together with our £80m investment programme to transform the terminal, this really will make the difference in bringing long-haul services to Stansted.”
Greg Clark, chairman of the London Stansted Cambridge Consortium, said: “The London-Stansted-Cambridge corridor is poised for unprecedented growth over the next decade.
“The mix of highly clustered growth sectors such as life sciences, hi-tech and clean energy desperately need international connectivity to key markets in North America and Asia in order to flourish and compete with global rivals. I urge businesses in the Corridor and the wider region to speak up and help the new team at Stansted Airport build a strong business case to make long-haul destinations a reality from Stansted.”