ROUTES EUROPE: The Varsity Airport Race – Part Two: London Oxford Airport

In the first half of this year the historical university cities of Oxford and Cambridge saw the appointment of new directors to oversee development of their regional airports. The HUB Daily spoke to both Chris Orphanou and Archie Garden to discover their plans. Today, we feature London Oxford Airport having yesterday looked in more detail at Cambridge Airport.

London Oxford Airport is rightly perceived as one of the most progressive airports in the UK. It has already made its mark in business aviation and is now attracting interest for niche, shuttle-style regional commercial flights and has supportive investors and mature development plans.

Interview with Chris Orphanou, Managing Director, London Oxford Airport…

Q) What are your immediate plans for developing the airport?
A) Continued development is the key for London Oxford, in recent times the airport has seen an 80 per cent increase in available hangar space, an expansion of apron area by 4.4 acres and ongoing redevelopment and new development creating business and office space as well as other site facilities. The Oxfordjet VIP terminal, which currently handles airline services, was constructed just under three years ago and offers immediate expansion potential to the existing structure with upper floors and room to grow passenger throughput in-line with aircraft movement volume.

Q) What are the main scheduled markets for possible growth?
A) Short-haul, business oriented domestic and international trunk routes to clearly apparent destinations within one to two hours flight time. Niche services are a strong opportunity in both business and leisure sectors, aligned to the economy of the Thames Valley region and evident demand, specifically targeting services not operating at or suspended by Heathrow carriers, as the squeeze on short-haul airlines there continues. The airport offers a more customer friendly and convenient option for those short duration, time sensitive West of London travellers. Destinations in the UK, Ireland, Netherlands, France, Germany, Scandinavia and so on, are all in dialogue currently.

Q) Can you detail more information on the airport catchment and your target markets?
A) London Oxford is central to the counties of Oxon, Bucks, Berks, Northants, Wilts, Gloucs and Hants, as well as West of London. The M40-M4 puts over five million customers within one hour of the airport, nearly double that within 1.5 hours. The Thames Valley itself - and Oxford specifically - are expanding and growing economic territory with net inward business and industrial expansion and a high value affluent ABC1 population base, some of the highest GVP and GDP values in the UK. Oxford is the UK's 3rd most visited tourist destination and highest ranking UK tourism location after the capital cities of London and Edinburgh. The USA, France and Germany are the biggest international inbound markets and still growing.

Q) Which area of the business - legacy, low-cost - best meets your target audience?
A) Somewhere in-between: our market requires service from high value business carriers, offering flexible and quality point-to-point service on shorter sectors that sits favourably within the regional airline community. Passengers will pay for convenience and hassle-free travel, but do expect a quality and customer-friendly experience that is glaringly non-existent by large low-cost airline offerings but which is more tailored and relevant than legacy carriers offer.

Q) Are there any operational restrictions that limit aircraft capacity?
A) Our runway: although our licensed runway lengths just increased to a TODA of 1582m, the available runway length can more than meet our business objectives. This offers an advantage in fact, as a defendable high-value market proposition safe from predatory low-cost carriers. Great for regional airlines with the relevant fleet types such as the Embraer 170 and Avro RJ and similar regional jets, the Fokker 50, ATR, Bombardier Dash 8-Q400 and other popular turboprops.

Q) What does the airport offer that other London airports cannot?
A) Speed, convenience and comfort – in fact luxurious - plus Oxford and the M40! This is a pleasant and sophisticated region and that is echoed by the airport experience. We have superb connectivity just minutes from the M40 and Oxford city centre, but equally we offer simplicity, low cost parking, speed of processing and hassle-free transit. Think of another larger London airport on a hectic Monday in rush-hour, the experience at London Oxford is something else. It's easy to get here, easy to pass through and you still get a smile from both our check-in and security staff - increasingly rare these days!

Q) What is the biggest challenge impacting your development?
A) The economy: the downtown in global industrial and economic fortunes with low customer confidence has affected all airports and aviation as a whole. Less so at Oxford, our regional economy is thriving by comparison, but the global economic upset has made airlines and their investors risk averse in general

Q) What is the biggest opportunity to develop?
A) Our catchment area and its passenger spend value: As one airline recently told us, London Oxford is perhaps the most prized potential regional UK market on the horizon. Economically our region has been bucking the trend and with a new fast London rail link opening for 2013, just a few minutes from our door, the capital becomes much closer - just 55 minutes. The airport is expanding rapidly in every sense, so we're well placed to bring the opportunity to fruition

Q) The Olympics in 2012 will bring opportunities to the UK market. What role do you intend to play in supporting incoming traffic to the country?
A) London Oxford is one of the major highlighted airports in the formal aviation response assessments for the Games and we will play our part in fulfilling that role. With greatly enlarged apron space, we can accommodate short- and long-haul VIP aircraft by the dozen and also charter airline uplift as required. The M40 and ease of access to the hotel district of London, to the water-based sports at Windsor and other Games components such as football tabled for Wembley, we're very well placed for a lot of the action. Our operation, in every aspect, will be geared-up accordingly and we are working with experienced partners with Olympics experience to make that memorable for Games visitors using this airport.

Q) Are there any other areas of particular interest to the airport?
A) Bespoke charter traffic is something that has shown promising development at the airport and we are well-suited to handling unusual and challenging charter traffic such as conference, VIP, VVIP and other such projects. We've carved a niche and quality reputation already for making special flight projects even more special! As Oxford is such a famous city around the world, it makes sense to work with our domestic and international tourist board partners to make the city even more accessible to the outside world. The world-renowned Oxford Aviation Academy (OAA) is going from strength to strength in the field of pilot training and leading rotary manufacturer Eurocopter continues to grow its successful local location for helicopter maintenance and development. The airport is also home to an ever-expanding number of business jet operators including Hangar 8 Plc, operator of the UK’s largest registered executive aircraft, a VIP-configured Embraer 190 Lineage that arrived in December 2010.