Bristol Airport confident on Americas and Middle East network targets
In its own quiet way, Bristol Airport’s been on the rise for some years now. From 5.7 million passengers in 2011, it reached 7.8 million in 2016 and is well on target to hit 8 million this year. It now flies to 120 destinations in 30 countries.
With 7 million-plus people living within two hours’ travel time, Bristol is the go-to airport for the South West peninsula, and much of South Wales too, racking up 1 million Welsh passengers a year.
Only Manchester and Birmingham in the UK are larger, save for the London airports. Indeed, it’s the not inconsiderable presence of Heathrow, just 90 minutes or so along the M4 from the city, that looks to be greatest inhibitor to Bristol’s growth. The airport offers flights to 120 destinations, but its long-haul offer is still relatively limited.
New routes
Robert Sinclair, chief executive, says: “We very much have Middle Eastern routes and North American routes as part of our target list, and I’m quite confident that they’ll come in due course, over the next few years. Really, it’s a function of there being sufficient confidence in the market.
“When it comes to North America in particular, our proximity to the Thames corridor is an advantage, but the other side of that coin is proximity to Heathrow, where there are several departures to New York every day.”
Things aren’t slow on the network development front – far from it. As Sinclair says: “We’ve got good visibility of growth into 2018 and I can say reasonably confidently that we’ll show good growth again. Growth has come for us across each of the sectors – budget, charter and full-service carriers.”
Along with Wizz Air, both Ryanair and easyJet use Bristol, with easyJet the largest player. Bristol is the carrier’s busiest UK base outside London, with 4.2 million passengers flown in 2016, a year in which it added Vienna, Basel, Dubrovnik, Venice, Nantes, Gran Canaria and Turin to its Bristol offer.
The 2016 figures are 11 per cent up year on year, while the number of easyJet seats available has gone up by 39 per cent in five years. easyJet services 63 destinations from Bristol, runs 638 flights a week and will add another aircraft to the city this summer.
In March, the carrier launched 6,000 flights from Bristol between 27 October this year and 4 February 2018, with destinations including Reykjavik, Edinburgh, Vienna, Paris Charles de Gaulle and Geneva, easyJet has also just added Kefalonia for this summer.
Ryanair, for its part, has added a winter route to Cologne and added extra flights to Venice (now served 4 times a week) and Bucharest, now served twice weekly. It runs 76 weekly flights to 20 destinations, with one of its roles being to connect passengers to key hub airports in Dublin and Milan.
When it comes to the charter operators, both TUI and Thomas Cook are active, with TUI operating Dreamliner flights to Cancun and Orlando. From next year, says Sinclair, they will add Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic.
Additionally, Thomas Cook is to employ a third based unit in Bristol from summer 2018. “They’ve responded to a market opportunity,” says Sinclair. Thomas Cook has, for this summer, added Bourgas in Bulgaria, Preveza and Kos in Greece, Paphos, Gerona on the Costa Brava and Hurghada in Egypt.
When it comes to the full-service carriers, BMI Regional is “increasing its frequencies incrementally,” these increases including going to two rotations per day to Paris Charles de Gaulle.
France, home to energy giant EDF, could see greater frequencies and destinations yet, should the multi-billion pound Hinkley Point nuclear power project in Somerset, currently undergoing preparatory construction, click into full gear: “As the Hinkley Point development really starts to get underway, we’ll see more capacity on French routes,” Sinclair predicts.
For now, Bristol is very much a connecting airport. It has strong connections with the key European hubs, with flights to Frankfurt and Schiphol plugging into KLM’s global network, while the Aer Lingus partnership that allows passengers to reach the US via Dublin, clearing US immigration in Ireland, continues to be well used.
Sinclair says: “The Dublin facility is a very popular feature, especially now with a clampdown in the US on security. And one-stop flights do offer remarkable efficiency, really when it comes to connectivity.”
Variety, and by extension, robustness, is being added to the way passengers can reach the US later this year, with Iceland’s low-cost long-haul airline WOW Air flying to Chicago via Reykjavik from July. Sinclair says: “In effect, it’s a low-cost product. People will see some very competitive prices.”
And then of course, there’s the return of BA, which last flew from Bristol in 2007 before its regional operation was sold to Flybe. The carrier has this month started flying to Florence, Ibiza, Palma and Malaga with weekend flights.
The airport’s development
The ongoing expansion of Bristol’s route network is being underpinned by a radical overhaul of the airport, which this year celebrates its 60th anniversary as a commercial operation. By the end of 2017, £160m will have been spent in a five-year development programme that has seen the terminal extended, a hotel being built, new piers and apron stands, not to mention new security checkpoints for departures and border control points in arrivals.
“The investment’s been spread right across the airport really, it’s been a multi-faceted programme,” says Sinclair. “We’re really pleased that our passengers are noticing it.”
Here he’s referring to the Airport Service Quality global benchmarking system for airports – Bristol is one of around 14 UK and 106 European airports to take part in the global quarterly survey. The AQS is a thorough system, measuring airports on markers right across the board. Bristol has been number one in the UK & Ireland territory for three successive quarters, and in the most recent survey was 6th in Europe.
Sinclair and his team are already looking beyond the current programme. The works underway will give it capacity to handle 10 million passengers a year, a number that at current growth rates it could reach in the not too distant future. The West of England Local Enterprise Partnership is heading efforts to improve road networks in the area, making the airport more accessible.
He says: “The local authorities here recognise our value as an employer and something that connects the region to the world. We’re working on our own piece of masterplanning that will dovetail with the regional transport plan. It will be an ‘issues and options’ document that will paint some broad options.”
The Brexit effect
For an airport so focused on Europe, the Brexit negotiations are of supreme importance. As things stand, things are going smoothly enough, says Sinclair.
“Brexit hasn’t had that much impact yet, although of course we’re focusing very heavily on the legal arrangements once the UK exits the EU," he says. "Obviously the Open Skies agreement will have to be replaced, but the question arises what form that takes – will there be a transition agreement, or a totally new form of agreement?
“Something has to happen. We’d like to think that sanity will prevail, and the sooner we get some certainty the better.”
He concludes: “There have been currency implications of Brexit, it has become an issue over the last year. But as the economy continues to perform reasonably well, we can hope reasonably that people will come to the realisation that economic Armageddon isn’t round the corner and we’ll continue to make progress.”
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