CEO Stewart Wingate's full keynote speech at Gatwick's economic summit

SussexWorld

London Gatwick held it's third Economic Summit this week. Here is Stewart Wingate's full keynote speech where he talks about the new Airport Economic Zone, a successful year and the latest on the Northern Runway plans

Transcript

00:00And good morning everybody. It's wonderful to see so many people here in person today and

00:06I must admit I'm a bit blown away by just how many people we have got in the room

00:10from such a diverse number of partnerships that we have. It's remarkable. As Sacha said,

00:21this is now our third year of doing the Economic Summit, so we're very proud to continue to host

00:27the Summit and to do this important work. And of course, as the airport, we take our position as

00:32the economic anchor for the region exceptionally important. The work of the airport across the

00:40region generates about £4.1 billion of economic value-add to the regional economy, so we know we

00:48have a really important role to play and that's why we're so happy to have so many of our partners

00:54here today looking at ways in which we can collaborate in the years ahead to optimise

00:59further the benefits that the airport can bring to the regional economy. As Sacha said, the agenda

01:07today is informed based on feedback from the previous events and from the summer events,

01:11so hopefully it hits the mark. And I'm delighted to say that from the Gatwick team, we've got many

01:17senior representatives in the room today, so we have our chair, Baroness Margaret Ford, with us

01:23and also a number of my executive team. We've got Jonathan, who will speak shortly, who's our chief

01:29commercial officer. We've got Tim Norwood in the room, who's our chief planning officer. Samantha

01:35Fulton, who's our director of communications and external affairs. So a number of the senior team

01:42at Gatwick in the room today to help us with the engagement. In terms of the year 2024, how's it

01:52been for the airport? It's been a really good year. As you can see on the slide, we will have

01:59more than 40 million passengers travel through the airport this year. We've got several weeks

02:05left to go, so you never want to take anything for granted in the airport business, but I would

02:10hope that we have just over 43 million passengers travel through the airport this year, which is

02:16about 92.5% recovery versus where we were back in 2019. So I think it's fair to say the airport's

02:24thriving and I'm delighted to say that the service levels that passengers have had going through the

02:28airport this year have been very good. Sacha touched upon the importance of new routes to

02:35the airport and to the regional economy. I'm delighted to say that we have 30 new routes

02:42of which 21 belong whole. You can see a number of the carriers who joined us in recent months,

02:49some very prestigious carriers, but one of which I think I should definitely give a shout out to

02:56of course is Singapore Airlines. I'm very grateful for Rafi, who is the general manager

03:01of Singapore Airlines for the UK and Ireland joining us today and participating in the conference.

03:06So Rafi, you're very welcome to be here. We're very proud to have you as one of our long-haul

03:11carriers and we're very much looking forward to those additional frequencies at the end of March

03:16next year, so you're very welcome to be here. In terms of investing in the airport, as the

03:23business has recovered, so we've certainly started to ramp up our capital investment efforts

03:30at the airport. So when I look at the year 2024-25, the financial year, we should invest

03:37somewhere of the order of about £180 million in improving the infrastructure at the airport and

03:44that's part of the £2 billion programme of capital investment that we have running out until the end

03:51of 2029. So I thought I'd just share a number of the key projects that are either in delivery

03:59or have been delivered recently. I think the first one, which has been very eye-catching this

04:05year, which is a project which is about 12 years in the making, is the rail station upgrade. I

04:10think, actually as I was having coffee outside, one delegate said that was the first time a day

04:15he'd been through the rail station. I think he frankly couldn't believe what a transformation

04:19that's been. So I think the work that the airport's done with DFT and Network Rail and the

04:25local enterprise partnership has really paid dividends and certainly from the airport perspective

04:30we've seen passengers enjoy the facility of a double-sized rail station through the peak summer

04:36months and it's really transformed the experience of passengers getting to and from the airport by

04:41rail, which of course is a sustainable means of transport. There are many other projects that we

04:47have been working on, so I'll just pick one or two. In the north terminal, in the departure lounge,

04:53we've fully refurbished all of the central areas. Often an airport will be criticised for

04:58forever changing out the retail units but sort of forgetting about the common area.

05:04So we did that during the winter last year and I'm pleased to say we'll be doing likewise in the

05:09south terminal this winter ahead of next summer. Passengers have really enjoyed that. As you

05:16approach the south terminal, we work with the company Grid Surf to actually implement the first

05:21electrical forecourt at any airport in Europe. So passengers who are travelling to and from the

05:28airport using an electrical car can now go to the forecourt and take advantage of the high-speed

05:35charging facilities that we have in the Grid Surf facility. If you haven't seen it, I'd recommend

05:39seeing it, it's quite eye-catching. Other things we're working on is the Pier 6 expansion over

05:45the north terminal which will see us have eight new Pier Surf stands. This is a project that should

05:51be delivered for the summer season of 2027. So we've got about 120 million pounds of capex to go

05:57on that project. We're currently on site with MACE. And then projects that have been delivered or will

06:02be delivered imminently, I just pointed the new car park over in the north terminal. It's a 3,300

06:08space car park. It should open just before Christmas time, at least that's what Jonathan's promised me.

06:15And then out on the airfield, we're also making improvements with our new rapid exit taxiway,

06:22which increases the resilience of the airfield. So there's a lot of investment happening as part

06:27of our investment programme. And we're also now starting to turn on the investment for our net

06:32zero target of getting our Scope 102 emissions for the airport at net zero by the end of 2030.

06:40So in the new year, we'll start investing in air source heat pumps to replace our gas boilers.

06:47So things are certainly moving quite quickly at the airport.

06:52In terms of the future, I think it would be remiss of me not to talk about the work of the

06:57Northern Runway project. I think many people in the room would have been following this closely.

07:03It's a project which we've been working on for about seven years now. And we're getting very

07:08close to finding out what the government decision is. Tim Norwood, who I think is known to many

07:14people in the room, has been leading this work. And it's very important for the airport. I think

07:19Sasha showed earlier, by the late 2030s, there's no reason why the airport shouldn't grow to

07:2575 million passengers, should this £2.2 billion project, which would be fully privately funded,

07:33be given the go ahead in the new year. If it is given the go ahead, which we very much hope it

07:38will be, 14,000 additional jobs across the region will be created, adding a further £1 billion to

07:45the regional economy when the runways have been running. So from our perspective, this is an

07:51incredibly important project. We've worked really hard. The examination period, which ran for six

07:56months this year, completed at the end of August. Literally next week, we anticipate the planning

08:02inspectors putting their recommendation to government. We'll not see that recommendation.

08:07We'll be notified if that's happened. And then the Secretary of State for Transport has three

08:12months to make the decision. So we're hoping early in the new year, but finally after seven

08:18years of work, we will have permission to take this project forward to the benefit of the regional

08:23economy. Today's summit, as we've already heard, is really about having one regional voice and

08:31navigating a way forward together. So throughout the event, other speakers will really focus on

08:36these three key areas of inward investment, international trade and regenerative tourism.

08:43But I thought what we should do from the airport perspective is to just share some of the examples

08:48that we're working on in order for us to be a strong partner for the regional economy.

08:54So first of all, I'll just talk a little bit about the enormous effort that the teams at the airport

08:59are putting in concerning the skills agenda. I think many people in the room will have visited

09:05our new STEM centre. It's a centre that really prioritises science, technology, engineering and

09:13maths and really is being used as a gateway to engage with younger people, either school age,

09:20college age or even further education age as well, to look at what the prospects could be

09:27if they were to come into the aviation business. I think it's fair to say that we've had tens of

09:33visits from various different educational partners over the last year. In fact, we've

09:39had over 3,000 local students go through this facility. So it's been exceptionally well used

09:46and we're very pleased with the partnerships and the progress that we're making on this agenda.

09:52What we've also done is to continue with our graduate programme. We restarted that last year.

09:59We actually scaled it up this year and I'm delighted to say we've got many graduates from

10:03local universities now as part of our graduate programme at the airport. For the first time,

10:10we've actually partnered with local state schools to bring in school age children on internships

10:17and also work experience at the airport. Just finally on the skills agenda, one topic that's

10:23very close to my heart is our apprenticeship programme. I actually started my career as an

10:28apprentice and I'm delighted to say that at Gatwick, even through the pandemic, we kept the

10:33apprenticeship programme going and it's now in its 47th consecutive year. The young guy that you see

10:39on the screen in the middle there is a guy called Billy Marsh, who was the apprentice of the year

10:45for the entire region this year. So he's somebody who we're very proud of and he certainly set the

10:51bar high for the other apprentices to follow in his shoes. In terms of innovation, you can see

10:58that we held our inaugural innovation summit this year. One of our guys there, Abi, is hosting that

11:05summit and that was really bringing together different businesses across the region to see

11:11how we can put the great innovation minds of the region together to improve the passenger experience

11:18of passengers going through the airport. Just two more examples on the next slide of how we've

11:24been partnering. First of all, I'll talk about the work that we've been doing on the visitor economy.

11:29We've been partnering with Gateway Gatwick partners. In this partnership, we've developed

11:36a marketing campaign with quite significant digital media collateral, which is then being

11:42used by our teams who do the route development for the airport to go across into international

11:48markets to market the benefits and to promote our region. The markets that we've used this

11:55collateral in include the likes of China, India, Singapore and Africa. So we really are putting

12:02this collateral to work, particularly to the benefit of our long-haul routes. Of course, we still

12:08continue our work with the local visitor economy partnership. Then from a regional promotion

12:14perspective, delegates who were here last year will remember that we talked about the first

12:19delegation going from this area to the REEF conference that was to be held in Leeds last year.

12:26Really pleased to say that with the Gatwick Diamond initiative, the airport took a leadership

12:32position in promoting the region and in so doing, reached an audience of about 13,000 delegates

12:41at that conference, including many international investors and developers. So I think quite a

12:48rich vein of partnership. So in closing, I'd like to share two pieces of news with you.

12:56The first one is that once again, we're going to lead a delegation to the REEF conference in 2025.

13:04Already, more partners have signed up to join us in this mission. We think it's a very worthwhile

13:11conference to be part of to promote our region. And if anybody in the room feels that they'd like

13:16to be part of that, please just talk to members of my team, particularly Alison Nanny or Richard

13:22Leonard, because we'd love to involve you. And just on the final slide, the other thing that we're

13:29really pleased to announce today, and this is very much taking into account some of the feedback over

13:33the last two years, is the Gatwick Region Airport Economic Zone.

13:39So you'll hear more about this later on in the morning from Alison Nanny. She's the Head of

13:57External Affairs and Policy at Gatwick Airport, known to many people in the room.

14:02Alison will be chairing a new innovative public and private task force, which will be looking at

14:10the airport economic zone with the purpose of striving to achieve a united and unified

14:17regional identity in order to bolster the economic activity across the region.

Category

Transcript

Recommended