Belfast City Airport is confident that it can improve its network following a successful Routes Europe 2017 hosted in the city, chief executive Brian Ambrose has told Routesonline.
Following the conference’s debut in Belfast, with more than 1,200 network planning professionals travelling to the city, Ambrose believes the “buzz” created will play a vital role in securing new routes.
“The event has been fantastic,” said Ambrose. “There are a lot of senior executives taking part who’ve never been to Belfast or the region.”
“That’s very important – it’s great that the route network planners her here crunching numbers, but they still have to convince their senior colleagues to start a route to Belfast."
Ambrose revealed that the airport will be targeting profitable growth in European hubs with flag carrier airlines, a goal which Routes Europe will play an instrumental role in fulfilling.
“For these routes the people we have been able to bring to Belfast have never been before. It will help some deals which are in the pipeline to get across the line,” he said. “When you’ve physically been to a place it has much more impact; they’re beginning to see why it’s vibrant and why we’ve had double digit tourism growth for each of the past five years.”
Aside from the “warmth of the welcome and world-class tourist attractions”, the airport and wider market has a lot to offer airlines, Ambrose said, particularly with its geography making air connectivity critical.
“Air connectivity is absolutely vital to our growing business market,” he explained. “You have everything from the local construction company executives flying out every morning to Britain, to the growing arts and film industry bringing people Monday morning and spending the week here.
“You can see the biggest development in the last decade when you look at the skyline at so many international firms. Citi Bank now employs 2,000 people and major law firms are growing here; by definition they need commuter links into Europe.”
Focusing on strategic routes that are profitable for the airline will prevent the airport from encountering any capacity challenges, Ambrose added.
“We have a decade of growth within the current infrastructure and planned improvements,” he said. Our new owners have asked us where we’d like to invest; we’re looking at technology to transform the customer experience.
“During this calendar year I expect to strip out the search facility and install the latest technology, which will dramatically change the flow; passengers don’t want to stand in queues.
“We’re already a modern facility but the secret is to keep ahead of the curve.”
A secret weapon in BHD’s arsenal is the strong cooperation with partners throughout the city and region such as Invest NI and Tourism NI; collaboration which even extended to working with rival Belfast International Airport for Routes Europe.
“An advantage we have when we do something, such as the MTV Awards, Sports Personality of the year or the Giro d’Italia, is that we’re like a village,” he said. “Everybody knows everybody. The two Belfast airports compete very strongly for all of our business but Graham [Keddie – Belfast International Airport MD] and I sat down and said ‘let’s be sensible and work together’.
“I have to hand it to the teams on the ground, they’ve been brilliant. They’ve done an incredible job, and together created a spectacular event.”
Focusing on strategic routes that are profitable for the airline will prevent the airport from encountering any capacity challenges, Ambrose added.
“We have a decade of growth within the current infrastructure and planned improvements,” he said. Our new owners have asked us where we’d like to invest; we’re looking at technology to transform the customer experience.
“During this calendar year I expect to strip out the search facility and install the latest technology, which will dramatically change the flow; passengers don’t want to stand in queues.
“We’re already a modern facility but the secret is to keep ahead of the curve.”
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