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The Aviation White Paper
and the Highlands & Islands
Tom Matthew
Highlands & Islands
Enterprise
“The Highlands”
Inverness Medical
Part of Johnson & Johnson Group
1,200 employees
Exporting world-wide
Staff travelling world-wide on a daily basis
Ensuring Access To Hub
Airports
“We cannot have a situation where the
regions are denied access to London”
Alastair Darling
Inverness Services:Present Provision
Airport
Operator
Gatwick
BA
Citiexpress
Heathrow
bmi
Luton
easyJet
Gatwick
easyJet
Started
Aircraft Base
-
Frequency
Per Week
Day
3
04
96
03
1
1
1
Heathrow
Luton
Gatwick
• Other Cross-Border Services:
*
*
*
Manchester
Birmingham
Stockholm
Inverness
Research Into The Impacts Of Loss of
Inverness-Gatwick Service (1)
• Independent study, undertaken in December 2001
• This was before:
* easyJet Gatwick service
* bmi Heathrow service
• Based on loss of full service operator with
additional services to Luton or Stansted
Research Into The Impacts Of Loss of
Inverness-Gatwick Service (2)
• Short-run employment loss of 1,400 Full-Time Equivalent jobs
• Long term impact could be greater - not least through
perceptions of the region being:
“peripheral, with minimal interlining and premier routes from the
South East”
• Impacts generally felt in “premier” businesses
• “Traditional” cost-benefit analysis cannot quantify the negative
impacts in terms of trips no longer made…
• Yet when Inverness-Heathrow ceased in 1997, traffic between
London and Inverness fell by 20%
The Findings In Context
• Impact equals one in every
hundred jobs in the region
• Loss of “premier”
businesses:
*
*
regional GDP per
capita is only 75% of
the UK level
under 3% of the
region’s businesses
employ more than 50
people
• Low population (434,000)
means that business base
needs to be outward
looking-exports and
tourism
• Limited business base
means that we require the
“import” of external
expertise
• Impacts would be felt
widely in geographic terms
Caithness & Sutherland
7%
Ross and Cromarty
18%
Inverness & Nairn
43%
Skye & Lochalsh
3%
Moray, Badenoch &
Strathspey
29%
Origin of residents using the
BA Inverness-Gatwick service
Significance of Interlining
• In the case of Inverness:
“some firms were there on the assumption
that they could easily get to London and
the US” (Alastair Darling) but…..
• The White Paper defines “London” as:
Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton and City
“London” Airports:Service Profiles
Full Service-Long Haul
City
Full Service-Short Haul
Luton
No Frills
Stansted
Gatwick
At August 2003
Heathrow
0
50
100
Number of Destinations
150
200
Interlining:
Gatwick and Luton Compared
EZY Luton LTN
GATWICK
BA Gatwick
0
10
LHR
20
% of pax interlining
30
Source: CAA Data
Possible Alternatives?
• Markets too thin to support extensive direct
services to non-UK hubs
• Interlining opportunities at regional airports are
much less than at south east hubs
• Surface access: only one direct daytime train
between Inverness and London which takes 8
hours
Conclusions
•
Air services to London generate very significant economic benefits
•
Need a mix of services to London airports-no frills and full service
•
This must include connections to hub airports, with adequate
frequencies and timings
•
Interlining opportunities are essential, especially where the remote
airport has limited connectivity
•
“Defined circumstances” for a PSO should reflect surface travel
alternatives
•
Good air services are essential to growing regional prosperity