aviation - the past, present and future of flight

DEVELOPMENTS

Back inside the terminal, Bourienne explained

the developments more pertinent to his

commercial brief.

“We’ve renovated the whole retail space,

increasing the duty-free shopping area by

40% in terms of square metres. We’ve pulled

down a few shops to open up views of the

runway, and created a few restaurants. We’ve

made the customer experience better and the

walkway more intuitive.”

The airport introduced common-use

self-service (CUSS) check-in machines a

few years ago and is currently working with

airlines to introduce self-service bag-drop.

“Usually, when other airports have

introduced this, it is because they have

capacity issues in check-in and it avoids

using the check-in hall. In our case, since we

have two check-in halls, we don’t really have

capacity issues but there are airlines like

easyJet who want to get the same product in

all the bases, which makes sense,” Bourienne

said.

The commercial director’s biggest IT

project, however, is just beginning. “It will be

time soon to review which airport operating

system [to handle information systems, gate

allocations, coaches to stands, departure

and arrival screens and so on] we are going

to use and we start looking at the market for

solutions. We expect to go live with a new

system in 2020.”

For many years Glasgow’s main

competition was Prestwick, about 30 miles

(48km) away, but today Edinburgh is the rival.

Bourienne explained: “Edinburgh tends

to be successful on routes that are more

inbound. Glasgow is a far bigger city, so we

tend to be more successful on routes that

are outbound. For instance, if you take the

Gulf carriers, they  nd it hard in Edinburgh

because it’s tough to make money from

October to June when it’s winter, whereas

Glasgow can  ll two 777s easily all year

round. But then, when it’s easyJet and

Ryanair [here] they have routes from regional

France or regional Germany, where a Scottish

person wouldn’t go for a weekend. So mainly

it’s inbound driven [for those carriers] and

usually Edinburgh is stronger.”

Many airlines, such as Lufthansa, British

Airways, easyJet, KLM, Air Canada, Delta

and United, serve both cities. There is a

duplication of routes because of demand, but

each airport usually sees a different pro le in

terms of passengers. “We tend to compete

only when it’s a thin route and you only get a

demand for one airport in Scotland. So, say

if we had a new route to China, I don’t think

there’s enough demand to get a  ight from

both cities, so there will be competition.

“For the service from Halifax, WestJet

looked at both cities and they knew that part

of the traffic was about former emigration

from Scotland to Canada. Therefore,

they knew it was a west coast of Scotland

market and not an east coast market,”

Bourienne said.

http://www.aviation-news.co.uk 63

Left: An overview of Glasgow Airport in 2008,

before extension work began on the eastern

pier (right).

Above right: Emirates celebrated ten years of

operations at Glasgow in 2014 by  ying an

Airbus A380 to the airport on an established

service normally  own by a smaller aircraft.

Right: Canadian competitors: Air Transat was

joined at Glasgow Airport by WestJet in 2015,

when the low-fare airline began services from

Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Below right: Delta Air Lines is among the

carriers that started services to Glasgow

Airport in 2017. Kenneth Williamson

Below: Ryanair and easyJet combined

provide more than 30% of the airport’s

annual passenger traffic.

60-64_glasgowDC.mfDC.mf.indd 63 04/12/2017 11:45