http://www.modern-railways.com April 2019 Modern Railways 69
and Plymouth airports have closed since. The
airports have very different markets with not
many operating flights outside Europe. Most
have grown strongly since 2012, particularly
for leisure traffic, and some are very reliant on
the policies and fortunes of particular airlines.RAIL USAGE VOLATILE
Table 3 shows rail passenger numbers from
the Office of Rail and Road statistics for
corresponding years; Heathrow’s main line rail
usage does not appear in the ORR statistics.
Most of the core airport stations are growing
quickly, however the numbers can be very
volatile. The Stansted decline after 2007 was a
particular challenge for the National Express
East Anglia franchise, but the traffic at the
airport and rail market share has come back.
Southend and Prestwick stations are
notable as having been built by the airport
operators, who continue to own them; the
heavy rail link into Heathrow was built by the
then owner British Airports Authority. All the
stations are mixed use to varying degrees;
I have not been able to establish the individual
proportions. There are new opportunities
to develop with the wider range of rail
destinations to be linked directly at Gatwick,
Stansted and Manchester in particular.
In analysing the growth at the airports,
intra-England air routes are not doing
well; Newquay to Gatwick is an exception
with 152,000 journeys in 2017. The jury
is out on how much faster and more
reliable rail services to Edinburgh and
Glasgow can grow rail market share. aTABLE 2: BRITISH AIRPORT USAGE
1997 2007 2012 2017
Heathrow 57.8 67.9 70.0 76.0
Gatwick 26.8 35.2 34.2 43.7
Manchester 15.7 21.9 19.7 26.0
Stansted 5.4 23.8 17.5 24.3
Luton 3.2 9.9 9.6 15.0
Edinburgh 4.2 9.0 9.2 12.5
Birmingham 5.9 9.1 8.9 11.8
Glasgow 6.0 8.7 7.2 9.4
Bristol 1.6 5.9 5.9 7.7
Newcastle 2.6 5.6 4.4 4.9
Liverpool 0.7 5.5 4.5 4.8
East Midlands 1.9 5.4 4.1 4.7
London City 1.2 2.9 3.0 4.5
Aberdeen 2.6 3.4 3.3 3.0
Southampton 0.6 2.0 1.7 2.0
Cardiff 1.1 2.1 1.0 1.3
Doncaster Sheffield
(opened 2005)
n/a 1.1 0.7 1.3Southend* 0 0 0.6 0.9
Exeter 0.2 1.0 0.7 0.9
Inverness 0.4 0.7 0.6 0.8
Prestwick 0.6 2.4 1.1 0.7
Bournemouth 0.3 1.1 0.7 0.7
Norwich 0.3 0.7 0.4 0.5
Newquay n/a 0.4 0.2 0.4
* Less than 100 users in 1997 and 2007. 1.5 million users in 2018
Source: CAA. All figures in millions of passengers, ordered by volume in 2017. Airports over 500,000 shownTABLE 3: USAGE OF RAIL STATIONS SERVING AIRPORTS (MILLIONS)
1997-98 2006-07 2016-17 2017-18
Gatwick Airport 7.5 11.9 19.4 20.3
Stansted Airport 1.5 5.4 7.6 8.9
Birmingham International 1.9 2.4 6.5 6.7
Manchester Airport 1.1 2.0 4.2 4.6
Southampton Airport Parkway 0.8 1.3 1.8 1.7
Southend Airport (opened 2011) n/a n/a 0.4 0.5
Prestwick International Airport 0.06 0.11 0.12 0.13
Stations with airport bus links
Luton Airport Parkway (opened 1999) n/a 2.4 3.8 4.0
Liverpool South Parkway (opened 2006) n/a 0.3 2.0 2.2
East Midlands Parkway (opened 2009) n/a n/a 0.3 0.3
Dyce* 0.2 0.4 0.5 0.5
Rhoose Cardiff International
Airport (opened 2005)
n/a 0.15 0.18 0.18* Bus service now withdrawn Source: Office of Rail and RoadTraffic holding up: No 387105 at Gatwick Airport prepares to depart on the rear of the 12.23 Gatwick Express
service to Victoria on 21 November 2018. This ‘387’ is part of the batch used on Govia Thameslink Railway’s Great
Northern services but received this temporary livery when it was redeployed on the airport shuttle. Philip Sherratt068-069_MR_Apr 2019_airports.indd 69 11/03/2019 17:26