Europe's Four Leading Airports Plan For Future Growth

Europe's Four Leading Airports Plan For Future Growth

By Amon Cohen

London Heathrow

It may be aging, it may be chronically short of space, it may be threatened by European upstarts, but London Heathrow remains the world's busiest airport for international departures and the key airport for transatlantic business travelers.

The number-one country to which aircraft fly from Heathrow is the United States and the number-one destination in terms of passenger numbers is New York JFK, with no fewer than 23 departures every day. Yet, time is running out for the grande dame of European airports. In 1946, its first year of operation, there were 9,000 flights. Now there are 1,250 each day and capacity is bursting at the seams. There are only two runways, but the real problem is lack of aircraft stands across the four terminals. Hence the long-standing plan to build a fifth terminal at Heathrow, a proposal that has been bogged down in numbingly slow bureaucracy.

The British government enquiry into Terminal 5 started in June 1995, finished in March 1999 and is expected to report its findings at the end of this year. The government then is expected to take six months to decide whether to approve the scheme, but a general election will be imminent and Tony Blair may well prefer to delay pronouncing on so controversial a subject.

The success of the T5 project is crucial to business travelers in both the United States and the United Kingdom. It is surely no coincidence that bilateral aviation negotiations between the two countries have foundered during the same period. Without an extended Heathrow, there seems little prospect of genuine Open Skies and free access for U.S. airlines while slots at the airports remain in such short supply.

Heathrow spokesman John Phillips claimed that the airport already is suffering and will go into abrupt decline if T5 (which would largely be given over to British Airways and its partners) is not approved.

"Over the past five years, passenger numbers at Heathrow have gone up 14 percent, whereas they have gone up 54 percent at Paris Charles De Gaulle," he said. "The continental European hubs are growing faster and we expect airlines to pull up sticks at Heathrow if it does not expand."

Meanwhile, the airport soldiers on in an attempt to make the best of its current limitations. Transferring between terminals remains a formidable undertaking, especially between T1 and T4 (BA short haul and long haul, respectively), but some facilities noticeably have improved of late. Around $150 million has been spent on T3, which is used by U.S. carriers and Virgin Atlantic, and there has been greater effort put into creating more checkin desks and speeding up baggage connections.

"Heathrow is not easy to get around but it does a good job under difficult circumstances," said Ian Hall, chairman of the U.K. & Ireland Institute of Travel Management. The atmosphere and aesthetics have improved in recent years."

There are also new facilities for business travelers constantly coming on stream. One of the latest at T3 is The Island, an arrivals lounge available (at a cost of $38) to all passengers, irrespective of their airline or class of travel. Facilities include showers, a valet clothes service, catering and a business center.

June saw the launch of Baggage Direct, a service that relieves passengers of their baggage and delivers it to any address in central London, especially useful for transatlantic travelers who arrive before their hotel room is ready. And if travelers have a long layover, at least they can practice their swing. The airport now boasts a golf studio offering a little RNR for transit passengers.





Frankfurt

The Lufthansa business lounges at Frankfurt Airport have some highly innovative amenities. These include a document shredder, a bank of televisions showing four channels simultaneously (while viewers listen on headphones) and, most exciting of all, water closets whose seats rotate 360 degrees through a robotic cleaner after being flushed. Given these landmarks in human ingenuity, it is hardly surprising that Frankfurt continues to flourish as continental Europe's largest airport and the key hub for flights to countries behind the former Iron Curtain.

Frankfurt currently offers 4,300 departures per week on 110 airlines to 290 destinations in 109 countries, an even more extensive network than that offered by its great rival London Heathrow. The United States is particularly well catered for, with flights operated Stateside not only by Lufthansa but also by American, Continental, Delta, Northwest, United and US Airways. Passenger numbers rose a huge 7.1 million between 1996 and 1999 and some believe that an expansion in route options has not entirely compensated for a massive increase in congestion and terminal sizes.

"The joke here is that your air ticket includes a sightseeing tour of Frankfurt Airport," said Thomas Faller, group travel manager for power and construction group Asea Brown Boveri. "Too many transfers involve a half-hour walk through the airport building--there are not enough automated walkways." Faller also criticized Frankfurt for not having many departure gates that give direct entry into the aircraft. He estimated that six flights out of 10 involve trekking across the tarmac.

The airport has attempted to address this problem recently by opening a new hockey stick-shaped pier in Terminal 1, providing docking for up to 13 aircraft simultaneously. Nevertheless, Faller worries about the transfer logistics, given that Frankfurt is one of the three hub airports he selected for long-haul flights for ABB in an attempt to drive business toward fewer suppliers (BTN, Oct.11, 1999). He would like to see Lufthansa address the issue by emulating Swissair, which displays up-to-date transfer information in its aircraft for passengers flying into Zurich.

One greatly improved aspect of Frankfurt, however, is its AIRail rail terminus, which has handled 300,000 passengers per month since opening last year. Thanks to a deepening partnership between Deustche Bahn and Lufthansa, more and more domestic air routes are being abandoned in favor of environmentally friendly high-speed rail links, which also liberate more slots for long-haul flights. Services to Stuttgart and Cologne will become the latest additions in 2001.

Meanwhile, Frankfurt continues to be a financial success, in spite of the abolition of European duty free. Profits rose 20 percent to DM349 million (US$167.4 million) last year and the municipal, state and federal co-owners are preparing for a partial privatization, while a fourth runway is scheduled to open in 2006. The airport also will be able to expand even further thanks to the U.S. Air Force, which will shortly return the adjacent Rhein-Main air base.





Paris Charles De Gaulle

Paris Charles De Gaulle is the current golden wonder among European airports. Passenger numbers rose a massive 12.9 percent in 1999, a greater increase than for any of the other 40 largest airports worldwide with the exception of Seoul. Much of this is due to the success of Air France, which in 1996 became the last leading European flag carrier to set up a hub for connecting flights in its capital city.

Business boomed and last year Air France turned a handsome profit in marked contrast to its main rival across the English Channel. Other airlines also have been piling into CDG, especially in the transatlantic market. New York-Paris is the second-densest route across the Atlantic, a position that was consolidated when American Airlines added a second daily flight to New York JFK in May. Delta Air Lines has filed to double up on the same route, starting on Oct. 29. Other Stateside expansion this year has seen Air France doubling to two flights daily to Cincinnati, US Airways launching to Charlotte and United Airlines going twice daily to Los Angeles. American Airlines and French national rail company SNCF also have a thriving codeshare arrangement, with passengers transferring to a train for onward service to cities such as Lyons from the airport's impressive new high-speed train terminus.

Expansion will continue apace with the opening of a new runway next year, although there are fears that demand soon could be exceeded, with capacity restricted to 495,000 movements per year. The French government soon will have to decide whether to court unpopularity by removing either this cap or an even more prohibitive limit of 250,000 movements at Orly, the city's second airport. A third option is to build a new airport at Beauvilliers, near Chartres, for about FFR50 billion (US$7.2 billion).

Other clouds on the horizon are a worsening record for punctuality (in contrast to Orly, which has the best record for any major European airport) and the militancy of the French worker. Air traffic controllers already have paralyzed the airport this summer in a protest against European Commission proposals for ATC reform and further stoppages are anticipated. Terminal 1, which handles most U.S. airlines, also is outdated and needs replacement.





Amsterdam Schiphol

Amsterdam Schiphol was arguably the great European airport success story of the 1990s. KLM embraced the hub concept earlier and more fully than its rivals and developed a wave system of carefully planned arrivals and departures, which boosted passenger numbers way beyond what might be expected of a nation of only 15 million souls. Schiphol's other great strength has been that it is a one-terminal airport, making transfers much easier than at the sprawling four-terminal Leviathan that is London Heathrow. Transfers now account for 48 percent of traffic. However, much sheen has been lost in the past few years.

Schiphol particularly made inroads into the United Kingdom, where it serves no fewer than 22 airports, but British business passengers rapidly became disillusioned after discovering that small commuter aircraft were not always up to the task and that the airport's airspace was becoming too crowded, frequently leading to missed connections. Schiphol is now the fifth worst major airport in Europe for short-haul delays and has the poorest record of the big four.

Success also has threatened the quality of the product on the ground, according to Herman Mensink, a Dutch resident and European director for the Association of Corporate Travel Executives. "There seems to be permanent reconstruction going on, which is a considerable nuisance for passengers," he said. "They also had difficulties rebuilding for flights from countries within the Schengen agreement, which allows complete freedom of movement between several inner European Union countries.

"The other problem I see as an individual traveler is that whereas everywhere in the airport used to be easily accessible, that is not the case anymore. The longest walk between gates is now about 30 minutes. It is not as bad as Heathrow but compared to what it was, it is a completely different airport," Mensink said.

He also is critical of road congestion around the airport, although rail links from the airport remain excellent. The train station is just a few seconds from the arrivals area and a journey to central Amsterdam costs a mere $3 (the journey of similar length into London with Heathrow Express costs $18). Mensink also praised the meeting rooms at Schiphol.

The future for Schiphol is still more expansion. The number of available gates will rise this year from 74 to 88 (four of them able to accommodate the yet-to-be-built Airbus A3XX) and to 111 by 2004. Annual aircraft movements are 420,000 but when a fifth runway opens in 2003, can rise to as many as 600,000. Even that may not prove enough. The airport has been toying with the idea of moving some of its operations to an artificial island in the North Sea, with passengers ferried to the main terminal in a high-speed people mover. It may sound like science fiction but a decision on this plan will be taken in 2005.

Vital statistics for Europe's four leading airports provided by Airports Council International and OAG.