On the day easyJet celebrates its 30th birthday, the airline’s boss has said London Heathrow is a target – but only if the price is right.
The maiden flight of Britain’s biggest budget airline took off from Luton airport to Glasgow on 10 November 1995.
Over the past three decades, easyJet has expanded to serve 164 airports in 38 countries – but not Heathrow, the busiest aviation hub in Europe.
The west London airport has government support for a third runway, which would increase the number of available take-off and landing “slots” by 54 per cent.
EasyJet’s chief executive, Kenton Jarvis, told The Independent: “It’s probably the only major capital airport we’re not in. Heathrow is the obvious blank spot, though Gatwick serves us well with around 70 aircraft, Luton 25, and Southend newly reopened. We have about 100 aircraft in the London area.”
“We have a healthy order book – 290 [Airbus A320 series] Neos on order – but whether we go to Heathrow depends entirely on cost.
“If Heathrow gets even more expensive, it’s unlikely we’ll be there. But if they can make it commercially attractive, it’s a great opportunity – that M4 corridor isn’t well served by low-cost carriers.”
At Heathrow, BA has by far the largest slice of UK domestic and European flights at Heathrow – the links that easyJet operates.
Sean Doyle, chief executive of British Airways, told the Airlines 2025 conference in London he “wouldn’t have any qualms about competing with easyJet”.
He said: “There’s a lot of catchment that overlaps between Gatwick and Heathrow that we compete successfully for.
“We also have British Airways down at Gatwick with 26 shorthaul planes, and that’s performing very well.”
Terminal 4 at London Heathrow was designed for point-to-point flying of the kind carried out by easyJet. Vueling, sister airline of British Airways and Iberia, uses the terminal for flights to Paris Orly and the Spanish airports of Barcelona, Bilbao and Santiago.
In addition, Eurowings, the low-cost subsidiary of Lufthansa, flies from Terminal 2 to Cologne, Dusseldorf, Hamburg and Stuttgart.
John Strickland of JLS Consulting said Heathrow is an obvious target for the budget airline: “EasyJet, they know they’ll attract more business travellers at Heathrow, and those passengers may pay a bit more than the average easyJet fare.”
But, he added, BA has successfully turned around its shorthaul routes at Heathrow. “They’ve managed to make money and have focused on running that part of the business not just to feed longhaul operations, but to be profitable in its own right.
“They’ve changed their pricing, started selling food on board, and even squeezed in more seats – much to our frustration as passengers. But I think BA and easyJet will give each other a good run for their money. It will be a healthy competitive spur.”
Heathrow airport declined to comment.
Listen to Simon Calder’s daily podcast: EasyJet at 30
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