The cool word Aerotropolis describes an airport that is no longer a structure but a community. Airports where transit, commerce, services, daily life, mobility and services co-exist. It is a good word for crossword enthusiasts.

The Jewel Waterfall at Singapore’s Changi airport is a good example. The world’s largest indoor waterfall is surrounded by shops and services. Critically, it is located landside so you do not need to buy a plane ticket to take a look.

Even better, Changi’s tax exemptions apply anywhere on airport land, including around the Jewel, potentially delivering advantages for merchants and shoppers alike.

Advertisement:

Unfortunately for airports all of these services – landside and airside – tend to work in isolation. Shared intelligence is either limited or does not exist.

A check in agent or lounge guardian does not know that a passenger on their airline has just parked their car or tapped out of the metro at the terminal’s station. A shop does not know that one of their regular customers at the town branch is coming to the airport today.

But as far as passengers are concerned a trip to the airport needs to be part of one consistent, orchestrated journey.

This article is about how airports have a role to play in journey orchestration.

In some respects airports and airlines have similar opportunities – there is no reason why airports cannot offer services, accept orders and make delivery to passengers just like airlines. These are addressed in the first section.

But there are also journey orchestration elements that are more specific to airports. The second section explains how airports create three marketplaces – for aviation, for passengers and for suppliers – and the third section considers how airports can orchestrate journeys for all the players.

Modern Airline Retailing principles can be applied by airports

Modern Airline Retailing is an idea that airlines can offer a wide range of products and services in addition to air travel.

These might be traditionally tied to air travel, like lounge access, priority security or excess baggage. They might also have been historically sold alongside flights as part of a travel package, such as hotels, rental cars and insurance.

But they might also include things outside of the traditional travel retailing scope but still useful to travellers, such as restaurant meals, meeting rooms and value added services alongside the journey itself, like flowers in a hotel room.

In principle airports are an important part of any Modern Airline Retailing schema.

Sometimes passengers will require delivery of what they purchased through an airline in the airport itself. That might be lounge access or excess baggage, or delivery at the gate of products purchased remotely while in-flight.

But airports could also make similar retailing efforts themselves. Arguably they are in a strong position to do so as they control site access and floor space use, which will both be essential elements of delivering what customers paid for.

In terms of orchestration though, it remains to be seen how effective airports can be at linking services across a journey. Travellers tend to interact with airline systems and apps to check in and head through the airport. The airport’s own app is not as essential.

Airlines and airports may not share data. Your local airport may not know that you are coming today, even if you travel through many times a year. That makes it hard for airports to make customised and compelling offers to travellers in advance.

But once travellers have arrived at an airport, or interacted with an airport’s apps, the game changes. The next two sections address how.

Journey orchestration needs to work across three marketplaces

Airport ecosystems create three marketplaces:

1. For airlines, their handlers and agents, without whom the airport would not exist

2. For infrastructure suppliers, who provide the hard and soft products that the airport needs to operate

3. For passengers departing, arriving or connecting, who need catering, space, comfort and entertainment.

An airport with strong orchestration processes in place is able to link and enhance all three of these marketplaces.

Consider how Uber, best known for ride hailing, links takeaways and rail tickets. Uber has linked these marketplaces. Or how China’s super-app Alipay links payment with travel and so much else. Airports can do the same.

Understanding what people need from airports

From an Economics perspective, each player in the three marketplaces wants to optimise their own wellbeing.

For retailers, service providers, airlines, the infrastructure suppliers and all other businesses, this means operating as profitably as possible.

Meanwhile for passengers it is about meeting their travel priorities. For some passengers it might be about saving money. For others, saving time, avoiding surprises or travelling comfortably might be important.

The challenge for airports is to make everything work as intended for all the players.

Airlines, handlers and agents require safe, secure and reliable operating environments.

The airport’s suppliers require procurement systems that offer a realistic chance of winning bids and a payment system that processes invoices on time.

Heathrow requires all their tier one suppliers to work with small and medium sized enterprises (SME) to give companies from all over the UK the chance to work with the airport.

For example Inventrite (a UK-based SME) supplies rechargeable lamps that are used at Heathrow to perform operations at night time. The Pallets Yard, another SME, supply pallets that the airport’s tier one suppliers use to make deliveries to the site.

Creating the procurement environment where the airport gets what it needs from as wide a network as possible with the end result that passengers can fly safely and reliably is another form of orchestration across markets.

Suppliers offering technology that enables passenger processing and identity-led journey integration are particularly important for the journey orchestration process. But every supplier counts.

Everybody who works airside needs a reliable and efficient process of getting appropriate clearance. A boarding pass for passengers, a security pass for staff and contractors.

Tango Check, a vetting and screening organisation, reckons that 72% of airside pass applications have an anomaly of some kind. These arise because the process of applying for passes is tough.

Passengers need three things from the airport. First is a single integrated source or point of interaction. A high quality and informative app is a good bet. But many passengers will want to ask staff for advice.

A service like Heathrow’s staff app can be deployed providing information that any member of staff can answer any passenger’s reasonable question.

Next up is intelligent personalisation and seamless journey integration, powered by data. Airports are data generating machines and sit on top of vast reservoirs of numbers ready to be crunched.

Personalisation need not necessarily mean making the passenger experience as great or luxurious as possible, although it can help do that – think Abu Dhabi and Doha as well as Changi.

It can also be about delivering the desired standard of service at as low a cost as possible, so people get to their gates and onto their planes on time and airlines are attracted by low landing fees – consider Ryanair and the many airports it flies to in Poland.

Data can also be used to optimise customer dwell time in catering outlets and shops, generating healthy chunks of non-aeronautical revenue – think Amsterdam’s Schiphol.

Read more

British Airways is inviting selected passengers to use their snazzy “First Wing” security channel. Lucky travellers will pass the metal detectors and X-Ray machines before heading straight into the Galleries First lounge with its fabulous horses.

I read about this in an article last week on Head for Points, the UK’s leading miles and points site. I wanted to figure out why BA is doing this. Read on…

Advertisement:

This article was written using data from OAG Schedules Analyser: visit oag.com. Thanks OAG!

BA upgrade passengers on flights when they are overbooked. So why not upgrade passengers in the airport too? There are three reasons they might do this:

1. They expect the Galleries Club (Business Class) lounge to be crowded

2. They expect the regular Fast Track security to be busy

3. They expect First Wing security to be under-utilised.

All subject to not adding queuing time or crowds for the First Class or Gold/oneworld Emerald passengers who can use the First Wing anyway.

The third explanation (First Wing security under-utilised) is the most interesting. The channel has two X-Ray machines, so staffing is either 50% or 100%.

Nowhere else in the terminal is the staffing choice so stark.

I think that BA and Heathrow are making a clever choice. My guess is that they are using First Wing capacity to send other passengers through and save money.

By using the First Wing they do not need to have another security channel open elsewhere, which leads to a staff saving. This is another one of those corner solutions.

Provided the First Wing is not busy, BA can “airport upgrade” passengers to a better lounge and a warm fuzzy feeling without diminishing the experience for the airline’s Firsties and Goldies.

To see whether or not this is possible I built a model of airport security arrivals at Heathrow Terminal 5. I used data for the day this article is published – Wed-27-May-2026. I made the following assumptions:

1. Aircraft capacity as defined by aerolopa.com

2. For flexible Club Europe with its movable curtain I assumed six rows for A319, eight for A320 and 10 for A321

3. Every flight operates and is on time…

4. Terminal 5 opens at 4.30am and the last flights leave to Cape Town and Abuja at 10.30pm

5. 85% seat factor in all cabins

6. 65% passengers originate at London in all cabins

7. People leaving from London arrive at security evenly spaced between four hours and 45 minutes prior to departure

8. I removed BA’s 43 flights from Terminal 3 that day, according to the Head for Points list.

These are assumptions that I have used before. BA’s load factor in the 2025 annual report is 83.8% and my 85% seat factor assumption is close to that. I have used the same assumptions about Club Europe and connections in other articles.

I am looking for times when lots of people are arriving in the terminal, but not many First Wing passengers are arriving.

The charts below show the modelled number of passengers arriving at security per minute through the day.

Source: OAG schedule data, operating airline BA, flights on 27-May-2026, Oliver Ranson’s analysis

The first flights head off to Madrid and Dublin at 6.15am. Quite a lot of people could be arriving in the early hours for these flights. Although since the terminal started the day empty, it will not start to feel full until a bit later.

Not many First Class passengers will start arriving before 7am. But many Club World passengers could hold Gold cards and the orange line shows that they start to ramp up quickly.

Meanwhile elsewhere in the terminal, Club Europe and “other” passengers are in peak arrivals mode. But since First demand for First Wing might rise quickly in the earliest hours of the day, I doubt that I would “airport upgrade” passengers expected to arrive at the airport at this time.

However things look more interesting in the afternoon. After about 1.30pm, First Class arrivals at security drop from roughly 0.4 per minute to 0.2. Meanwhile Club Europe arrivals per minute remain flat at just under four, rising slightly to a bit over four by 5pm.

Between 2pm and 6.30pm “other” passenger arrivals at security drop gradually from around 30 per minute to 20.

So here is the golden opportunity. Between about 1.30pm and 7pm, First Wing is not expected to be at the peak busy time. But there will still be passengers arriving.

Remember there are only two channels in this part of the airport. Keeping both open and closing one at fast track elsewhere in the airport maintains the high quality security experience for First Class passengers and Goldies.

Offering an “airport upgrade” to selected Club Europe passengers works just like overbooking and upgrading on the plane. It helps the airport and the airline use their capacity more efficiently.

It also surprises and delights chosen passengers, who might think well of the airline and spend more money next time.

How BA chooses passengers to “airport upgrade” within the cohort arriving at the airport in the relevant times is another matter.

They might go by cabin, status, known information that is correlated with propensity to purchase, or even just at random.

In the original Head for Points story the passenger featured was going to Glasgow. That may not be a coincidence.

Read more

Heathrow Terminal Three arguably offers the greatest collection of airport lounges anywhere in the world. There are at least ten airside, although not all are available to one passenger at once.

Front cabin travellers and shiny card holders in the oneworld alliance can use four – American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific or Qantas*. The alliance rules have no issue with lounge hopping and passengers can use them all, if they so desire.

Other airline lounges include the Emirates facility and the groovy-funky Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse, recently refurbished and with the airport’s only outside viewing platform.

More airline lounges are available in the arrivals area – American Airlines, an Emirates “limo lounge” where passengers wait for complimentary cars and Virgin Atlantic’s “Revivals”.

Back in departures, there are also an American Express lounge, a personal shopper lounge, a No 1 Lounge and a “Clubrooms from No 1 Lounges”. On an early business trip back in 2006 when I was still in the telecoms industry I remember using the rather good Gulf Air lounge in Terminal Three.

If any airports are close to “peak lounge” today, Heathrow Terminal Three must be one of them.

There are many more examples at many more airports.

But today I want to explore the future. Have we reached “peak lounge”? And what if the entire departures hall became a lounge in all but name? Read on…

Advertisement:

Airport lounges can essentially be classified into four types:

1. Lounges operated by the airport that do not require an additional payment to access, such as the ordinary “departures lounge” open to all passengers – these are mature from the perspective of passenger experience and retail tenant rents, but might have interesting opportunities from an airport seeking to monetise their assets

2. Lounges operated by the airport that can only be accessed on payment – these are emergine in some airports and mature in others

3. Lounges operated by third parties, such as Collinson Group, who operate more than 80 “lounges and airport experiences according to their website – the Amex and No 1 Lounges facilities at Heathrow would fall into this category – operators like Collinson have matured the business model, but some airports have further to go than others

4. Lounges branded by an airline – they need not be operated by the airline, for example Qantas lounges in Melbourne and Sydney are operated by Sofitel Hotels – these are mature, although some monetisation opportunities such as sponsorship may continue to be refined.

5. Special terminals, such as Lufthansa’s First Class terminal at Frankfurt, the old Premium Terminal at Doha and Mancheter Airport’s “Aether” – these are rare and not mature, so where they exist monetisation opportunities could be substantial.

So to answer the “have we reached peak lounge” question completely, we need to consider each of these four categories. But in today’s article we will just be looking at number one – the ordinary “departures lounge”, accessed by all passengers. The monetisation of special terminals will be covered in a future article.

Access to the “departures lounge” is traditionally included with all airline tickets. It has to be, otherwise how would passengers be able to access the gates.

However airports are hungry for revenue. Changes to the departures model might be interesting for them to consider.

Charging for priority security is one example. Heathrow bundles the normally faster channel in with a 1^ST class ticket to the airport on their Heathrow Express rail link to central London.

Car parking is another way that airports monetise their space.

In 2023 the UK’s largest airports (Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Manchester), made £673 million ($915 million) a year from car parking. That is £1.8 million ($2.5 million) on average every day.

Heathrow developed 900 new parking spaces in 2024. These spaces will have contributed to non-aeronautical revenue, which grew from 36.3% of total airport revenue in Q1-23 to 37.2% in Q1-24.

My local terminal at Newcastle Airport charges a hefty £6 ($8.18) just to pick up passengers or drop them off. The fee reduces to £4 if you use a car park slightly further away.

There is no charge to park at the “Waiting Zone” next to Callerton Parkway Metro station, one stop away from the terminal by train. The fare is £2.50 on a pay as you go “Pop” card. Alternatively, a free shuttle bus operates between the Waiting Zone and the terminal.

Could airports apply the pricing logic that they have applied in car parking inside the terminal?

The idea would be that access to the gates, basic seating and loos would have to come free of charge as these are essential elements of an airport’s service.

But restaurants and shops in the airport of the future might be behind a paywall. They might not look and feel any different to the restaurants and shops of today, but would have become to all intents and purposes another lounge.

There are potentially significant downsides to airports of following this model. Retail and hospitality franchise holders might argue that airport charges for access would harm demand for their services. They might demand lower rents as a result.

Airports might also find that passengers tend to arrive at the airport closer to flying time if they know there will be no free access to anything other than basic facilities.

This could put pressure on check in and security areas and force airports to choose between hiring more staff or suffering more delays and putting off their airline customers.

However there might be upsides for airports too, as well as the incremental revenue from new access charges.

Read more

Have you noticed that while Heathrow’s airport code is LHR, clearly to show “London Heathrow”, their brand is just a clean “Heathrow”?

The decision is deliberate. The UK’s largest airport considers itself an airport for the whole country, not just London.

So when I heard that the airport was holding a Regional Business Summit in Newcastle upon Tyne, my home town, I knew I had to be there.

The event was great, positioning Heathrow as a national economic platform. Not only by attracting customers from the regions but, critically, British suppliers too.

In this article I will explain, from what I learned at the event, how they do it. I will then present my own analysis of Heathrow’s approach, including two challenges I think they will find it hard to overcome. I also think that Newcastle and the North East region has some specific challenges to overcome if they want to make it big in aviation.

After the analysis I have some photos of the event. Then right at the end I will repeat some of the jokes told by the speakers. Some are a bit cringey, but all the better for it!

Advertisement:

Heathrow’s growth & expansion presents an opportunity for North East businesses

£300 billion of imports and exports pass through Heathrow each year, making the airport the UK’s largest cargo port. 84.5 million passengers originated, terminated or travelled through Heathrow in 2025.

Only around half a million of these travellers are going to or from Newcastle – the region is a relatively small part of the UK’s overall economy – but they often fly in premium cabins.

The airport served 63,000 passengers in 1946, the year it opened (Heathrow will be 80 on 31-May-2026, just 23 days from this article). These days it takes only three hours for the airport to process a similar number of passengers.

Chi Onwurah, an MP representing the Central and West constituency of Newcastle, opened the event. She reckons that a third runway at Heathrow will generate £1.89 billion for the North East of England a year, by 2040.

She described the third runway, which will generate around 300,000 extra flight movements a year, as a national mission not a London one.

Newcastle Airport support the third runway too. They see it not as a competitor but an enabler of additional connectivity through Newcastle.

Ben Wheeldon, Major Projects Director at Heathrow, believes that 60% of the national benefits of Heathrow expansion will accrue to benefits outside London and the South East.

Those expansion plans are not limited to the third runway.

At the same time as building the new strip, Heathrow also plans to rejig their terminal set up. Under the “toast rack” model where terminal buildings extend through the airport site in parallel. The toast rack will expand capacity to 96 million passengers a year.

Terminal Three will need to be demolished. Opened in 1961, this is the oldest major terminal in operation anywhere in the world.

Two Terminal Five satellites will each increase capacity by around 20 to 30 million passengers, taking total capacity with the third runway to around 150 million passenger journeys per year.

And the third runway plus additional terminal capacity will not just help North East business and residents connect to international markets. It will also give Newcastle-based businesses an opportunity to participate in the supply chain.

This does not mean that Heathrow is looking for large-scale international businesses based in Newcastle. 60% of the airport’s suppliers are Small and Medium Sized Enterprises (SMEs).

63,000 people* in the North East work in advanced manufacturing of some kind. Newcastle is also the UK’s first AI growth zone, with a healthy number of tech startups – UK Startup & Scaleup Week has been held in Newcastle since 2017.

The region also has a clean energy industry, driven by the offshore wind facility at Blyth, which may be able to help airlines and airports achieve what the event called “jet zero” (eek! – Ed).

Accordingly Heathrow reckon that Newcastle’s local businesses may be able to provide solutions and opportunities that the airport has not imagined yet.

* the same number as Heathrow served in the year it opened!

Heathrow consider these events if they result in new businesses working with the airport. Unfortunately the process is not easy. SMEs are unlikely to become tier one suppliers and work with the airport directly.

Instead they will work through a larger third party who has that direct relationship. A certain amount of red tape is inevitable. However Chi Onwurah said “don’t let the red tape dim your ambition!”

What the tier one suppliers say

All of Heathrow’s tier one suppliers are required to work with SMEs.

These are not necessarily micro businesses. The British government defines an SME as one with less than 250 staff and either no more than £44 million turnover or less than £38 million on the balance sheet.

But the tier one suppliers are generally much larger. VolkerFitzpatrick, a construction co, reported £729.5 million in their UK entity’s 2024 accounts and spoke at the summit. They were represented by Matt Ghin, their Operations Director.

AtkinsRéalis, a Canadian engineering co, were represented by Director Phil Tarrant. Their 2024 report stated global revenue of CAD 9.7 billion (£5.2 billion).

Given that this was Heathrow’s conference, Mr Ghin and Mr Tarrant were suitably gushing, explaining how Heathrow is a great customer to have and how Heathrow make everything as easy as possible.

My impression was that Heathrow probably are trying to do as much as they can to reduce barriers to entry from SMEs, including businesses in Newcastle and the North East.

The airport says that they are looking for innovation, efficiency and speed all together. I do not see why this should not be possible – it is not the cheap/quick/good pick-any-two trilemma.

The tier one suppliers gave the impression that while Heathrow tries to avoid big tender documents with a detailed scope pre-defined by the airport, this is not always possible.

They advised SMEs to consider working with Heathrow an opportunity to “shape the conversation”. That way, when a tender is issued their products are likely to qualify.

It is quite likely that many SMEs have products that with a few tweaks could plausibly be used at Heathrow.

But a large amount of the discussion was about tangible products – earth moved, water diverted, buildings erected. So when the time came for questions I asked about SMEs who provide services and software that Heathrow might need.

The reply was that Heathrow has a different team for services and software procurement, but the end goal was the same. The airport is looking for new ideas and better ways of doing things.

Another audience member asked about how Heathrow learn from other sectors. The suppliers reply was that they find it easy to get “tunnel vision” working on a Heathrow programme. They said that while “it is easy to want to be curious”, unfortunately “the day job gets in the way”.

What the SMEs say

Two SMEs were represented at the summit.

Inventrite, who are too young to yet have filed accounts, produce a rechargeable lamp battery. Their owner Paul Cole told the story.

In March 2026 there were 175 of their batteries providing light for night time runway maintenance at Heathrow. More are coming soon – next month there will be 400 of Inventrite’s batteries at the airport.

Mr Cole’s message to SMEs about working with Heathrow was “don’t fear it, do it!” He said that

The Pallets Yard buy, sell and repair wooden pallets. These are used in industries all over the world, including at Heathrow. Their latest accounts show assets of £140,691 at 31-Dec-2024 – quite different to VolkerFitzpatrick and AtkinsRéalis.

Director of Finance & Admin Ruth-Anne Lynch said “Heathrow’s tier one suppliers need pallets, and they get them from The Pallets Yard”. She also described Heathrow’s “Lift Off” SME academy as “a bit like Dragons’ Den”, a TV programme where SME owners pitch for investment.

As with the tier one suppliers, I felt that Heathrow did a good job exhibiting the tangible. But it remains harder to see how service and software suppliers from the North East can work effectively with the airport.

Heathrow will face two different types of challenges working with North East businesses

Heathrow’s event was held very much in a can-do spirit. They had representatives from tier one suppliers and SMEs who supply the airport. However my take is a little more sceptical. I have two issues.

The first is that for every SME who ends up working with the airport, there must be many who do not.

Heathrow’s speakers encouraged people to talk to them, which is good. But from their perspective success is working with new businesses, not necessarily any one business in particular.

Heathrow enjoys the benefits, businesses incur the costs – a classic externality. As a result Heathrow will probably get fewer expressions of interest that would be economically efficient.

The second issue is one of incentives for business owners. Imagine you are taking £150k in dividends each year from a small business in the Team Valley, a trading estate in Gateshead, just south of Newcastle.

There may be opportunities to increase your profitability by working with Heathrow so you can take £250k in dividends instead. But your business is profitable enough and there are probably easier ways of expanding than going to Heathrow and it’s red tape.

It is hard to see how Heathrow will overcome these two challenges.

Subsidised bidding could help, but might attract less well qualified suppliers who would need to be weeded out later.

Pre-qualified SME pools would add an extra administrative hurdle without necessarily solving a core problem that not all SMEs realise they can work with Heathrow or, if they do, are unsure how to go about doing it.

Revenue guarantees might attract chancers.

Heathrow’s current approach – being open and welcoming and happy to chat – is probably their best bet given real-world constraints.

Newcastle also faces some specific challenges

Dawn Huntrod, Regional Director North at Make UK, referred to Northern Ireland in a panel discussion. She said that the North East is the UK’s second smallest manufacturing region after Northern Ireland.

The comparison is interesting. Northern Ireland may have a small manufacturing base, but it is highly relevant in aviation.

Northern Ireland is a centre for manufacturing aircraft seats. The Qatar Super Diamond Business Class seat from Qatar Airways’ Boeing 787s and Airbus A380s was manufactured at the Collins Aerospace in Kilkeel near another Newcastle, this one in County Down.

Any passengers who have flown Emirates Business Class from Newcastle (upon Tyne) are likely to have sat in a seat made in Northern Ireland too.

Where the English Newcastle may face challenges is in finding something specific and being known as a place meeting that aviation need.

Industrial clusters win contracts, not regions. Newcastle already has an energy cluster – could solar panels for airports be something the region becomes famous for in aviation?

PowerRoll Solar for example are based in County Durham a few miles south of Newcastle. They produce solar panels that can be rolled up and fit into odd-shaped places. Could a specific function like that be relevant to airports? Maybe.

Newcastle also has software and life science clusters – perhaps software that enables biometric scanning could become the region’s key contribution to aviation?

Clean energy, advanced manufacturing, culture, life sciences, tourism and the North East’s other industries sound impressive but are too generic. The North East will need to get specific and market its industrial base as relevant clusters if it wants to become the go-to place for something aviation related.

Show me the photos!

Here is Heathrow’s Chief Communications & Sustainability Officer Nigel Milton, who was em-cee of the day:

Here is the day’s agenda:

I really liked this slide showing how small Heathrow is compared to some other major European airports:

This slide explains the “toast rack”:

Here are the tier one suppliers – Procurement Director Paul Doherty is speaking and on the right is the panel’s Chairman, John McCabe from the North East Chamber of Commerce – from the left are Mr Ghin and Mr Tarrant:

Some humorous asides

The conference was not without its lighter moments. Heathrow’s Procurement Director Paul Doherty remarked that professional footballer is the only job not available at the airport. There is not currently a Heathrow United playing in the football league.

Mr Ghin, Mr Tarrant and Paul Doherty described themselves as “the world’s best boy band specialising in infrastructure”.

Conclusion

Heathrow’s message to the regions is clear: this is not just London’s hub, it is national infrastructure and it wants to behave like it.

The Regional Business Summit showed that this is more than branding. Heathrow is making a genuine attempt to draw in regional suppliers, spread economic benefits, and position Heathrow as a platform for British industry rather than just a gateway for passengers.

But good intentions do not remove structural constraints. For many SMEs, the cost and complexity of engaging with Heathrow’s supply chain will outweigh the potential upside. And at a regional level, broad capability is not enough as regions that succeed as aviation suppliers like Northern Ireland tend to specialise, not generalise.

If Heathrow can lower the barriers to entry, and if regions like the North East can define a clear and differentiated role within the aviation ecosystem, then the model has a chance of working.

If not, the risk is that “Heathrow for all the UK” remains a compelling narrative but an incomplete reality.

If you want to start an airline, you might imagine that obtaining your Air Operator Certificate (AOC) will be the most significant hurdle to overcome.

AOCs are not just handed out with the rations. Regulatory authorities want to know that the planned operations are safe and feasible.

But in many countries it might not be as hard as you think. If you have the team, the business plan and most importantly the money your friendly local regulator will help and guide you through the process.

Completing the initial steps may be harder than actually getting the certificate.

Advertisement:

Here in the UK our Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) remove the mystery from the process. On websites like this one they tell you what you need and what to expect.

In principle the rest of aviation should work the same way. Unfortunately, this may not always be the case.

In this article I will be examining the fascinating world of airside security passes, which authorise the holder to work in the Restricted Zone of an airport.

I will first be taking a look at airside passes in general, including my personal experience of holding passes at Doha and how things are done at Heathrow and elsewhere in the UK.

Next I will explain why the process of applying for a pass is hard and share some top tips I heard from vetting agency Tango Check on how to handle the necessary steps.

Finally I will examine why this all matters from an economic perspective.

Complex application processes create frictions that raise costs, distort competition and shifts burdens onto those least able to absorb them while the benefits of security are shared more broadly.

Airport passes are potentially a good example of what economists call X-inefficiency, an idea that businesses like airports are not as efficient as they might be. They are also subject to externalities, which I have written about before in a sustainability context.

MY (limited) experience holding airside passes

Back in my Qatar Airways days I required clearance for an airport pass twice.

Once when I was handling the airline’s baggage policy and I spent a night on the ramps looking and learning. On the second occasion I was carrying out a waste optimisation audit.

Getting the pass was quite easy. My head of department signed the form. The head of Ground Services signed it too. The pass duly arrived. It all felt quite easy.

When I actually went to the airport the experience felt a bit weird. It felt so easy to access the airside area. Somehow all the areas which had previously felt so special felt rather ordinary. It was an interesting emotional experience.

Once my passes were handed back, these areas of course felt special again.

Airside passes at Heathrow and elsewhere in the United Kingdom

My limited experience of the world of airport passes was in the early 2010s and it was also in Qatar. In the second half of the 2020s and here in the UK things are quite different.

Heathrow Airport’s FAQ attempts to provide clarity in the same way that the CAA does for AOCs, but not as clearly. Some of the text is not exactly comprehensible to the lay reader.

I struggle to understand for example quite what the difference is between a pass that is “parked”, i.e. temporarily inactive, and one that is “barked”. It may be something to do with accessing the baggage handling areas.

Presumably if you know, you know. Please let me know if you have the answer.

You or I cannot apply for airside passes on our own account, as airports understandably only accept applications from employers.

Airports might apply for passes for their own employees. Airlines and ground handling agents might apply for their employees.

But in the case of subcontractors, who applies is likely to be case specific and depend on whether or not the work requires a full pass or temporary 5-day, 30-day or visitor pass.

Temporary pass holders can only work alongside a full pass holder and if they are found unescorted their employer will be in trouble.

Passes are also colour coded to indicate the access rights a holder enjoys. Access all areas passes are rare.

Applying for passes is hard

Tango Check, a vetting and screening organisation, reckons that 72% of airside pass applications have an anomaly of some kind. These arise because the process of applying for passes is tough.

Read more

Airports produce large amounts of data. Hundreds of terabytes of information each and every day according to aviation tech veteran SITA.

AI-augmented CCTV measures footfall and dwell time in every part of a terminal. Baggage Handling Systems scan tags and figure out where everything is at any one time. Retailers clock up sales. Those are just a few examples.

As always with everything data-wise, the value lies in how the data is interpreted and used. Not just with data’s generation, or even the intended use case.

Advertisement:

Today’s airports are data generating machines sitting on top of vast reservoirs of numbers ready to be crunched. If used wisely, these can deliver customer satisfaction, support business from airline customers and drive profit.

But what should airports do with all their data? At the strategic level there are three options:

1. Make the passenger experience as great as possible, attracting travellers back for more and achieving word-of-mouth marketing, giving airlines a good reason to keep or even increase scheduled services – think Abu Dhabi or Singapore Changi

2. Deliver the desired standard of passenger experience at as low a cost as possible, maintaining airline customers and attracting new flights by offering affordable landing and handling charges – think the airports of Poland trying to attract Ryanair

3. Optimising passenger dwell time and spend in the shops, bars and restaurants, attracting retail clients and generating healthy chunks of non-aeronautical revenue – think London Heathrow or Amsterdam.

The three are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Airports might adopt one or more as a general strategy.

Or they might apply different principles to each part of their business.

Using data in the airport’s smallest but most important rooms

Lavatories seem to be a thorny issue. Across airports worldwide, 75% of complaints are about the smallest rooms according to Dolphin Solutions, a washroom equipment supplier.

Trade association Airports Council International list cleanliness as one of the most important drivers of customer satisfaction.

It would be understandable if airports wanted to make the loo experience as great as possible, almost at any cost, while optimising cost and experience in, say, the security channel.

Data that identifies challenges, automatically dispatches crews to restock or clean, and directs passengers using the app to the cleanest nearby loos could make a big difference to passenger experience. That will avoid complaints, feed recommendations and drive demand.

Turning queues & crowds into opportunities to manage flows through the terminal

New AI-powered platforms are using this data in real-time to help airports turn information into decisions.

The USA’s Transportation Security Association of New York’s JFK Airport uses a “digital twin” of the airport to figure out where they should best deploy their staff.

When queues in one location build, the TSA can call upon people from less busy areas to resolve operational bottlenecks. This avoids showstoppers that delay airline flying programmes, as people getting through the TSA’s processes quickly are more likely reach the gate in time.

But data-driven queue management is not limited to how the airport’s managers and staff manage capacity. It can also influence how demand materialises for services within a terminal.

Read more

I arrived at Doha to start my first airline job with Qatar Airways on 1-Sep-2007. No air bridges in those days – a large fleet of buses shunted passengers between plane and terminal. It was a Saturday, about 9pm, and the air was hot and humid.

After the humidity hit me and I walked down the stairs, I saw a rep from the airport waving a sign with my name on. I was told to report to the Al Maha arrivals lounge at the terminal.

Advertisement:

I handed over my passport and the team took it to the immigration authorities, who gave it a blue arrivals stamp.

State of Qatar. Doha. Agent 330. Holder Should report Expatriates Affairs Dept. within a month of arrival to Qatar. You can see the stamp on the left in the picture above.

The team came back to the lounge, returned my passport and escorted me through to landside. I headed to the Ramada Hotel and next day appeared in Revenue Management on the second floor of Qatar Airways Tower.

No Tower 2 or Tower 3 in those days.

Arrivals experiences like these are rare today. They were even rarer back in 2007.

Doha’s Al Maha Meet & Greet. Marhaba in Dubai. These airports pioneered mass market meet and greet services.

The services are affordable for the mass market. A limo from the plane costs 640 Qatari Riyals (£130). The service I enjoyed is priced at 420 Riyals (£85). And the lounge-only service is 325 Riyals (£65.80).

You can even use Avios to pay, although the value is poor at between 26p and 37p per Avios.

Away from the mass market, it was always possible to get special treatment at London Heathrow.

Their By Invitation service is considerably more expensive than Al Maha. The price today is £4,060.21 including VAT. This includes car transfers and special lounges on either departure, arrival or transit.

No co-incidence that a Qatar Airways plane and a Heathrow-branded car currently feature on their website for the service.

I would argue that the Heathrow by Invitation service is not necessarily over-priced.

Immigration at Heathrow is generally a smooth experience for UK passport holders, as well as Americans, Canadians, Europeans, Singaporeans and South Koreans.

Other nationalities may suffer long waits. If three passengers have flown into Heathrow and each holds a £5,000 Business Class ticket, so £15,000 total, an extra £4,060 to skip the lines is a big hit but not implausible.

In the rest of today’s article I wanted to consider whether or not meet & assist services like Al Maha may be poised for growth. Will we start to see them at many more airports? Will they become a lot more popular?

Now read on…

I have three benchmarks for airport services that have grown in popularity over the last two decades.

Twenty years ago visiting an airport lounge, using a premium check-in desk or accessing fast-track security were a minority business. They came part and parcel with First or Business Class travel. Since most passengers were in Economy, they missed out.

These days, all three are much more popular. British Airways launched it’s Bronze status tier in 2011. This card comes with benefits like bonus Avios on flights and free seat selection seven days ahead of travel.

For the purpose of this article, the most interesting benefit is access to Business Class check-in counters.

My local airport Newcastle like many others sells fast-track security access. Accessing the quieter lanes tomorrow will cost £7, according to their website. In my experience you would be wise to get it early in the morning, but not necessarily later.

At Heathrow, fast-track security is bundled with a 1ST Class ticket on the Heathrow Express train to and from Paddington.

Airport lounges have perhaps seen the greatest democratisation of all. Collinson, a large non-airline operator of lounges, said that 2025 was a record year for lounge visits. The group’s revenue was up 17% in 2025 and profit rose 18.7% to £290.6 million. Meanwhile, their gross margin remained stable at 16%.

Aspire, who operate the lounge in my home airport at Newcastle, have expanded significantly in the last four years. They took over the space which British Airways used to use as a Terraces and now have three distinct spaces:

1. By the window and featuring impressive chairs is exclusively for Emirates long-haul Business Class

2. Slightly further back but still benefiting from the natural light is the space for premium cabin passengers and shiny-card holders on other airlines

3. You turn left at reception to reach the Emirates and premium cabin lounge, but if you turn right there is another space for the Priority Pass members and pay-to-visit customers travelling on Jet2, Squeezy and others.

Meanwhile in the rest of the terminal the bars and restaurants remain busy. Geordies love to have a good time.

So clearly there has been increased monetisation of paid airport services at check-in, security and in the lounge. This should not be a surprise.

Thanks to economic growth the average consumer now has more money than ever to fritter on luxuries like airport priority.

Real GDP per capita in the United States only shrank twice in the last 25 years according to the World Bank and the average American consumer is 37.2% better off in real terms than they were in the year 2000, according to Econ Scope, a data provider.

Will it be easy for airports to monetise further into meet & assist as consumers become more prosperous? Read on…

There are three types of meet & assist: arrivals, departure and transit. All are about privacy and time saving.

Arguably an arrivals assistance which helps travellers skip lines at immigration, or at least sit in a comfy chair with access to refreshments while passports are processed, is of broader appeal than departures or transit.

For many passengers arriving in the United States there is already a form of meet & assist: Global Entry. But that requires investment of time and money in applications and interviews, plus a significant forward planning element. Al Maha and Marhaba in the Gulf are almost walk-up-and-pay services.

There are three challenges that limit how airports can expand meet & assist services beyond their current scale and scope at most sites.

First is economies of scale. A lounge needs one or two guardians at reception, a small number in the kitchen and some others to handle the on-going set-up and clear-up of service.

Read more

Any flight, no matter how good the service or sleep, comes with a nagging doubt. How easy will it be when I arrive at my destination?

None of us are at our sharpest after flying. An early start or a late night arrival has probably been involved. Possibly both. Or even worse, a zero-dark-hundred arrival when most things are still shut down following little if any sleep on a red-eye.

The challenge is especially acute when crossing many time zones. And all of that is under “normal” circumstances. Without any disruptions from weather, systems, air traffic control, strikes or any of the other issues that can hassle or halt air travel.

Even on short flights the experience can be frazzling as there is little time or space to sit back and relax after going through one airport’s processes before another’s looms ahead.

Arriving at a new city in a foreign country with little understanding of the local language or transport system can be harrowing. It gets much easier once you have reached your hotel. But before then things can seem tricky.

Long queues at immigration are easy to imagine lying in wait. Entering the United States was traditionally tedious, although the Feds seem to have been improving things in recent years.

US Customs & Border Protection publishes statistics about airport waiting times. Global Entry eases the pressure slightly as regular “alien” travellers who fly enough to warrant investing time and money in pre-clearance can go through with the locals.

It is more than a decade since I had to wait more than 30 minutes to enter the United States. Sometimes I found no queue at all.

Even on my recent trip to Dallas, where queues looked enormous at first glance, I was at the front and assigned to a desk within 20 minutes. It then took just under another ten minutes to get through from there, but all in all I thought it was not too bad.

Meanwhile immigration in Canada, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Kenya, Tanzania and even Uzbekistan has never yet caused a long wait for me. Touch wood.

Advertisement:

This article was written using data from OAG Schedules Analyser: visit oag.com. Thanks OAG!

Heading back to the UK, I am so confident that the e-gates will let me through quickly that I often try to be last or almost last off the plane. My reckoning is that it is more comfortable waiting in my seat than standing at the baggage carousel.

Traditionally, going to Europe was equally easy. Because I am British I was given citizenship of the European Union by the Treaty of Maastricht in 1993. I whizzed through the e-gates like any German, Pole or Spaniard.

That gambit no longer works for obvious reasons. On my recent trip to Hamburg I had to wait 30 minutes. Arriving after an Emirates A380 probably did not help. But even so the line was much shorter than what I had seen in Dallas.

Under the Schengen area’s Entry & Exit System (EES) things sometimes get a lot worse

Arriving passengers without EU citizenship must register at a kiosk. Tales from the field suggest that staff are directing all travellers to the kiosks, even if they have already registered.

I was told at Hamburg that even though I had registered at the kiosk I will still need to head through the manned immigration channel. That was on departure, when the airport has e-gates for EU citizens as well as on arrival.

Queues at some European airports are long. A frequent traveller who lives in my neck of the woods recently said that the best thing to do when arriving at Brussels at 8am was to “bring sandwiches”.

This actually supports the analysis I conducted last year. I said that Brussels was one of the least likely airports to collapse as if it had queues and delays it could accommodate them. And indeed it has not collapsed, despite the queues. Which is not to say well done, though.

When I went through Madrid a few years ago extra chaos was caused when immigration officers went on duty and left those in the queue in front of them to their own devices.

EES is going to hurt airports and airlines financially

Large hubs like Amsterdam and Madrid are built to cope with high volumes of passengers. They do not collapse, even when queues are long, because they have enough space and time for transiting passengers to make their connection.

But these airports may lose out on retailing revenue if travellers are spending their time in lines rather than in the shops and cafés.

Airlines will be lose revenue too. Not necessarily immediately. But inevitably in coming years there will be lower demand to Europe as some travellers decide not to bother and holiday at home instead.

Lower demand translates into lower revenue even if not lower passenger volumes due to Revenue Management. So EES could create a negative feedback loop where airlines reduce fares but arrivals remains so bad that demand keeps falling and fares get lower still.

In the rest of this article I want to investigate whether or not there are any easy fixes. These might cost money, but they will save travellers a lot of time and hassle.

Fixing EES to get all travellers through immigration faster is in the interests of airports, airlines, travellers and the wider economy in all EU members states.

This article is not intended to get political

Airlines and European travellers are not a Brexity bunch. I will not be blaming Brexit. Nor will I be championing Brexit “opportunities”. And for that matter many travellers affected by EES are not British.

Even EU nationals can be impacted. Families with children must use a desk that may have a long queue of foreigners waiting.

Some EU airports, Toulouse for example, do not have e-gates and seem to funnel everyone Schengen and otherwise into the same channel.

The EU should widen access to e-gates

At London Heathrow many nationalities can use the e-gates. As well as Brits, they are open to:

1. Americans & Canadians

2. Aussies & Kiwis

3. Europeans & the Swiss

4. South Koreans & Singaporeans.

There is no reason the EU and Schengen countries could not do the same. None of these nationalities need a visa to access Schengen.

Access to e-gates for British nationals would be particularly prudent. Due to geographic proximity the UK generates a large amount of Europe’s inbound traffic.

At many airports flights from the UK represent a significant proportion of all international arrivals. At some airports flights from the UK are a large group that cannot be ignored.

At Brussels and Barcelona, UK originating flights represent 4.2% and 9.6% respectively of seat arrivals tomorrow. Small but significant.

Meanwhile at Malta 3,187 of 16,853 seats (18.9%) will arrive from the UK. At popular sun-sea-sand destination Alicante a whopping 34.3% of seats will arrive on flights from the UK. And that is off-peak.

It is plausible that deepening the analysis by terminal, which is not in my data, would show an even greater prominence of UK-originating traffic.

The British government should not be tempted put a bit of stick about

One option available to the British government would be to reciprocate. They would close access to British e-gates from EU and Swiss nationals until such time as EES is sorted out and British nationals can get through European airports quickly.

This would be a mistake. European tourists and business travellers generate huge amounts of revenue and jobs for British airports, airlines and the wider economy.

Read more

Sometimes in life when fate deals out the cards, you are lucky when many others are not. Last weekend in Dallas was one such occasion for me. Somehow I managed to escape Winter Storm Ferm when many, even most, others did not.

The weekend of Sat-24-Jan-2026 and several days onwards has been problematic for all US airlines. Cold air from the North Pole brought it’s Arctic chill to many of the lower 50 states.

I was in Texas, which declared a state of emergency. So did New Mexico, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and at least ten other states.

This is the kind of weekend which highlights lessons to be learned. Things that work and things that do not. Airlines that somehow coped and airlines that broke down.

I do not want to comment on what American Airlines and Dallas Fort Worth did well and what they did not do well. That is for other analysts, a later time and more considered thought.

But I do want to report what I saw and how I saw it happen. Looking back it was something of an epic adventure for the ages. Perhaps not quite The Odyssey or The Mahabharata, but I will certainly never forget it.

Frankly, I still cannot believe that I am actually home.

Advertisement:

The weather forecast

I had a great time in Dallas. As well as the Frontiers of Flight Museum I went up the Reunion Tower for great views.

Next I visited the Sixth Floor Museum in the old Texas Book Depository, which covers the assassination of President Kennedy. Seeing the place where such a remarkable incident in history happened puts everything into perspective.

For most of the time I was in Dallas the weather was pleasant. You might have gone to play golf wearing a polo shirt and a short sleeved jumper.

On Tuesday and Wednesday the people I had gone to see started remarking on the weather. They said it was going to get bad. It did.

I was due to fly out of Dallas and back to London on Sat-24-Jan-2026. This flight was cancelled on Thu-22-Jan-2026 and I was auto-rebooked onto AA20 on Sun-25.

Reports on FlyerTalk suggested three-hour plus waits on the phone to rebook. The aa dot com rebooking tool did not appear to be working – alternative flights were available, but changes were charged the commercial fare, not free of charge as they should have been under the airline’s waiver.

I went to stay at the Grand Hyatt for two nights. I had a great room with runway views. I watched flights head off.

Staying at the airport if at all possible during disruption is a good idea. Not only will you not have to worry about public transport or taxis through difficult conditions, the check-in agents can move you to earlier flights easily.

While I was at the Hyatt I even headed downstairs when I saw seats to London pop up on Expert Flyer. With the weather I knew was coming, getting out and wasting my hotel room was better than staying.

Sadly by the time I got to the American Airlines check-in desk they were gone and I hunkered down.

Some statistics from Flight Aware tell the story of what was happening across the United States and just how serious an event Winter Storm Fern has been

Here are cancellations and delays, by airline.

Sunday-25-Jan:

American Airlines: 59% cancelled, 24% delayed

Delta: 45% cancelled, 24% delayed

Southwest: 33% cancelled, 23% delayed

United: 36% cancelled, 26% delayed

Monday-26-Jan:

American Airlines 57% cancelled, 27% delayed

Delta: 14% cancelled, 38% delayed

Southwest: 10% cancelled, 31% delayed

United: 11% cancelled, 32% delayed

Tuesday-27-Jan:

American Airlines 45% cancelled, 34% delayed

Delta: 3% cancelled, 26% delayed

Southwest: 0% cancelled, 21% delayed

United: 1% cancelled, 16% delayed

Dallas Fort Worth suffered more delays and cancellations than any other airport, again according to Flight Aware.

For originating flights:

Sunday: 71% cancelled, 23% delayed

Monday: 58% cancelled, 26% delayed

Tuesday: 31% cancelled, 36% delayed

For terminating flights:

Sunday: 63% cancelled, 28% delayed

Monday: 57% cancelled, 26% delayed

Tuesday: 36% cancelled, 27% delayed

American’s longhaul flights from Dallas out of the Americas operated or were cancelled as follows:

London: Three of four cancelled

Cancelled: Madrid, Auckland, Tokyo Narita, Paris, Santiago, Shanghai

Operated: Barcelona, Tokyo Haneda

25% operated, 75% cancelled.

I collected this data from the airline’s online flight status page.

For other oneworld carriers:

Qantas cancelled the A380 service to Sydney and operated the 787 to Melbourne with an extra stop in Auckland.

Cathay Pacific operated their flight to Hong Kong via Osaka.

Qatar Airways and Japan Air Lines operated. British Airways did not.

Note that Southwest seems to have recovered much more quickly than American Airlines, despite both airlines having near identically placed hubs at Dallas Fort Worth and Love Field respectively. The two airports are only 11 miles apart on a flat plain.

However Southwest and American Airlines may not be directly comparable. Southwest’s aircraft rotation patterns are based on point-to-point movements. AA’s a hub-and-spoke.

Saturday – the ice cometh

When I opened my blind on Saturday morning it was bleak outside. Snow dusted the ground. Ice was falling from the sky.

When it cleared up every now and then a few flights started moving around.

Snow ploughs and what I think are de-icing trucks (happy to be corrected!) shuntered around all day.

On Friday the hotel was not busy. On Saturday it was fully booked. Getting a table for dinner required a 30 minute wait.

This made me worry about where I would stay if I could not get out on Sunday.

Sunday morning

I headed downstairs to check in at about 11.30am. I was tempted to ask to be moved to the earlier flight of the day, AA50 leaving at 3.45pm. It was a good job I did not – this flight was cancelled.

After two minutes to get through security and a short walk I was in the Flagship Lounge. It was working well. There were plenty of seats and good food and drink.

I noted with interest that all flights had a gate assigned, even though departure was still many hours away.

At “my” gate, D23, a 787 was on stand…

Sunday afternoon

The 787 at gate D23 had been scheduled to fly to Hawaii at zero dark hundred that morning. That flight was cancelled. It was then reallocated for a 9am-ish flight, also to Hawaii.

But there was clearly a problem. The engine cowling was up and wrenches were being turned. A Captain was visible on the flight deck.

I watched the aircraft scheduled to operate the 3.45pm flight appear in it’s special “Flagship” livery. This was at about 2.30pm. I thought it would be great to be flying on that specially painted plane. Thankfully I was not.

Near showstopper 1:

Maintenance on the 787 was not complete before the gate was required to accept the plane due to carry me back to London, which as it happened was coming in from London.

Boeing 777-300ER N736AT landed at 1.45pm. It then headed to park at the north end of the airport, where it stayed for nearly three hours.

Near showstopper 2:

At about 3.20pm a tug appeared to push the 787 back and free up the gate. A group of ramp agents worked to shovel snow away. Unfortunately the tug appeared to break down.

Read more

This article will be short and sweet. Like a good cognac. Because, as it happens, it is about a good cognac.

The airport duty free shop is full of fascinating economics and even economic history.

For example Toblerone chocolate bars are sold at airports far and wide because during the Cold War as the Swiss chocolate they were politically neutral so everybody could buy them. They became the global standard in airport treats.

All manner of pricey products are available in the airport duty free. But often boutiques try and flog off the less popular models of handbags or watches.

If you want a Rolex Submariner or GMT-Master II you will have good luck if you find one in the airport. An all-gold Day-Date is an easy buy.

Your favourite airline revenue economist’s favourite duty free product is XO Cognac. My first bottle of flying brandy was bought on a Cathay Pacific flight 25 years ago.

And in today’s article I will explain how Hennessy, a famous producer of the tasty beverage, has used interesting branding strategies to boost willingness to pay for a standardised product.

Airlines, whose seats are highly standardised too, might do well to be inspired by Hennessy.

Now read on…

Advertisement:

This article was written using data from OAG Schedules Analyser: visit oag.com. Thanks OAG!

A bottle of background to the Cognac market

The main Cognac brands are Courvoisier, Hennessy, Hine, Martell and Remy Martin. Together these account for most of the airport duty free market. Some more obscure brands are sometimes available – I quite like a Meukow.

Cognac comes in different grades – the main ones are:

1. VS – Very Special, at least two years in cask

2. VSOP – Very Special Old Pale, at least four years in cask

3. XO – Extra Old, at least ten years in cask.

Not every producer offers every grade. Hennessy’s main products in the UK are a VS and the XO, although a VSOP can be seen in Asia [edit: I saw one for the first time recently at Heathrow just a few days ago, so it might be a new thing].

Remy Martin’s core bottles are VSOP and XO. I am not aware of any airline that serves Remy Martin from the on-board drinks trolley.

Some of the producers offer other varieties.

At the premium end these include Hennessy Paradis, which retails for £1,250 a 70cL bottle in my local fancy grocery and is served in Emirates First Class. The selection in Hong Kong Airport’s duty free is pictured below. Prices are in Hong Kong Dollars, roughly ten to the Pound.

Remy Martin offer their Louis XIII product in a remarkable bottle for £3,250.

So what is Hennessy up to?

Asia is a core market for Cognac. It goes well with Chinese food.

But while the market was booming ten years ago, it seems to have cooled after COVID. In 2006 a litre bottle of Hennessy XO at Heathrow was £55. In 2019 it was £195, against £80.16 in inflation-adjusted terms according to measuringworth.com. Today’s price is £185, roughly £112 in 2006 money.

I note with interest that the Hennessy XO bottles at Heathrow are less elaborate than in Hong Kong. Is Hennessy cutting costs?

So on my recent trip to Hong Kong I was interested to see Hennessy’s “Spirit of Travel” Asian Edition collection, pictured below.

Hennessy are offering one Litre bottles of XO in little pouches with different coloured bag tags and specially labelled decanters.

The tasty tipple is the same in every bottle. But the labels are all different. There is one for each of the following Asian cities.

1. Macau, the entrepot across the bay from Hong Kong

2. Hainan, the tropical island province in China’s south-west

3. Singapore, the Asian tiger

4. Shanghai, China’s largest megalopolis

5. Hong Kong, Asia’s world city

6. Taipei, to the north east

7. Shenzhen, just north of Hong Kong

There is also a bottle for Paris.

In Hong Kong you can only buy the Hong Kong-themed bottle, pictured below.

Presumably the others are available in the airports of their cities.

You can personalise your bottle too, pictured below.

Hennessy’s Asian Edition cities are well connected. The table below shows that 9.9% of seats to and from Hong Kong on the day this article is published are on Hennessy routes.

Read more

Newcastle upon Tyne is arguably the greatest city in the world. It has the world’s greatest football team, Newcastle United. The world’s greatest nightlife. And, of course, your favourite airline revenue economist.

So when I read that three economics Profs from the University of Antwerp consider Newcastle International Airport (NCL) a leading regional airport I was not surprised.

Ever since the 1980s the local ‘drome has been a part of my life. Back then it had a landside café with runway views and an observation deck – ideal for a youngster meeting his Dad back home from business trips.

Sadly the café and the deck are things of the past. Yet NCL remains a pleasure to fly through. British Airways shuttles come and go from gate three. The new Aspire lounge is pure belta and the old BA Terraces was too. Security is brisk and efficient.

A Premier Inn and a Hilton are a convenient few minutes walk away in case your flight needs to leave at zero dark hundred hours. The Tyne & Wear Metro will whisk you to and from your flight.

But I digress… Back to the three Profs, who recently published an interesting paper about how to classify regional airports in western Europe*.

* Insights in diversity: A latent profile cluster analysis of regional airports in Western Europe by Jolien Pauwels, Sven Buyle & Wouter Dewulf (which I will now call Pauwels et al)

The three Profs split all the regional airports in a selection of north west European countries into one of three categories:

1. “Leading” regional airports – see the map here on the excellent Great Circle Mapper

2. “Small” regional airports, either “remote/rural” or “small” – see the maps here and here

3. “Challenged” low-cost airports – see the map here – which have a negative revenue to operational cost ratio and are publicly owned.

Interestingly, many “leading” regional airports are in the UK – the 1986 Airports Act encouraged private ownership with all the efficiency and performance incentives that brings.

I wanted to find out which airlines are serving the “leading” regional airports and which the “challenging”. Read on…

I used data from OAG Schedules Analyser to write this article: visit oag.com. Thanks OAG!

I will be spending the next two weeks developing new material. Airline Revenue Economics will be back on Mon-29-Sep-2025.

On 23-Sep-2025 & 24-Sep-2025 I will be at T2RL Engage, an industry shindig in London. Please say hello if you are there too.

What is a regional airport?

We all know the big names across global airports – Singapore Changi, London Heathrow, Los Angeles LAX and the like attract plenty of attention.

But what exactly makes a regional airport? I thought that Airline Revenue Economics readers would be interested to hear the definition that Pauwels et al use. They reckon there are three characteristics that make a significant regional airport:

1. Less than 10 million “Work Load Units” (i.e. passengers and cargo movements) per annum

2. No more than 20% of passengers connecting

3. No more than 20% of passengers travelling more than 5,000km (3,106 miles).

This makes sense for my local “leading” airport Newcastle.

The airport is served by network carriers including British Airways, Aer Lingus, Air France, Emirates, KLM and Lufthansa. 104 of 421 (24.7%) flights and a week are on these airlines. They have 15,658 of 72,603 (21.6%) seats a week.

No more than a handful of passengers finish their BA trip in London in my experience. But more will originate or turn around at Dublin, Paris, Dubai, Amsterdam or Frankfurt.

Meanwhile Jet2 and Ryanair have 27.6% and 17.8% respectively of the airport’s weekly seats, carrying Helen’s Hens and Simon’s Stags to Tenerife, Malaga or another “on tour” sun and excitement destination.

EasyJet (pictured taking off from Newcastle above) has 52 weekly flights and 9,042 seats.

I can believe that no more than 20% of passengers from Newcastle are connecting.

And when it comes to distance, only Emirates (Boeing 777s to Dubai) and TUI (Boeing 787-8s to Cancun and Orlando) have flights more than 5,000km. These represent 4,147 (5.7%) of the weekly seats, way under 20%.

If October is a “representative” week, 72,603 seats outbound represents 3.8 million outbound and 7.6 million in and out of Newcastle a year. There were 5.1 million passengers in 2024, and if capacity was stable that represents a slightly lower than expected 67.1% seat factor for Newcastle’s airlines, unless capacity has increased a bit this year.

NCL clearly nicely meets the Pauwels et al definition of a “regional” airport.

Some statistics about flights to & from these regional airports

I collected a week of schedule data for each of the airports in Pauwels et at’s paper across the week of 6-Oct-2025 to 12-Oct-2025. This is four weeks from the date of this article.

Read more

The new Schengen Entry-Exit System (EES) begins on Sunday 12^th October this year. Passengers arriving at airports in the Schengen Area from non-Schengen airports (like Gatwick, above) will need to register their biometric details, offering their fingerprints and a photo to border guards.

Government IT does not have a great reputation. Travellers should expect delays. They would be wise to prepare for chaos. Hopefully all will go smoothly, but if it does not things could get very gnarly very quickly.

In this article I identify which of the 50 busiest airports in the Schengen Area may be most at risk of collapse if something goes wrong with the new systems. Even if things are not drastically bad, they may be the most likely to have the longest queues.

The Schengen Area contains 29 European countries who do not share any border controls. A person in France can travel to Spain, Latvia, Denmark or any of the others without needing to show a passport.

This does not mean that travellers do not need photo ID when they fly. Airlines still rightly insist on proof that the passenger travelling is the person named on the ticket. To do otherwise risks diluting revenue by ticket transfer.

Sometimes passengers travelling on a flight between Schengen Area countries will have to pass through immigration.

This happened to me when I flew from Madrid to Toulouse – the plane disgorged it’s passengers into the non-Schengen arrivals channel for reasons that were not clear. Since everybody had photo ID there was no problem. I wonder what would have happened otherwise.

In today’s analysis took the 50 busiest Schengen Area airports and data about how many non-Schengen arrivals they can expect on EES launch day. Many of these travellers will not be connecting and so need to pass through immigration.

This article is not intended to be a criticism of the airports that are most vulnerable to disruption. There are always good reasons why airports and airlines have adopted the schedules and processes in place. It is not a criticism of EES either. There will no doubt be many good reasons why this system is being introduced.

Often the things which make airports vulnerable to disruption when all is working well make them better for passengers and airlines on a normal day but conspire against them when things go wrong.

But this article is about recognising that aviation is all about trade-offs. It explains how filling an airport with loads of conveniently timed flights gives travellers a lot of options, which is normally great for everyone. But it also means that queues get longer more quickly if something breaks down. Which may be more likely than usual on 12-October.

This article was written using data from OAG Schedules Analyser: visit oag.com. Thanks OAG!

Building the model

Entering Schengen can be tricky with long waits even under normal circumstances.

I have had nightmare experiences myself at Madrid with agents closing desks and telling waiting passengers to go to the back of another queue. I have heard horror stories about Amsterdam.

When a new system arrives I doubt things will work smoothly everywhere. Apparently airports have been installing kiosks for travellers to give their details before approaching an immigration desk. I hope they work. But if they do not, travellers and immigration officers will have a long day ahead of them.

Originally I was planning to build a detailed queuing and connectivity model to figure out which European airports are most at risk of collapse on EES launch day.

The idea was similar to my analysis of which airports are most vulnerable to check-in system disruption.

Airports have limited immigration capacity. Even if they roster staff to fill all desks, which is not always possible due to employment regulations, there are still limited numbers of desks.

The number of passengers who can pass through is constrained by the number of staffed desks and the speed with which the immigration system can process passports.

A small increase in processing time fills up the immigration hall. A larger increase in processing time will have lines through the terminal.

An even larger increase will cause aircraft to stay at their gates before allowing passengers to leave, eventually causing the collapse of operations as planes cannot come and go on time.

Sadly I struggled to get the data I needed. There were three difficulties:

1. Understanding clearly which airline flies to which terminal at every airport is not always clear

2. At some Schengen Airports I have been through, e.g. Frankfurt Terminal 2, there are multiple immigration halls – if one is busy passengers can go to another, if they are directed there by staff

3. It is tricky to get data about how many passengers arriving from non-Schengen flights leave the airport, how many connect onto other non-Schengen flights (avoiding immigration) and how many connect to another Schengen destination (requiring immigration).

Even the domain of “reasonable assumptions” will struggle with these. So I made this article a little smaller in scope than I had hoped. Sorry.

So I built a “lite” model, which just shows the number of seats arriving from non-Schengen airports on the EES launch date.

Some of the passengers in these seats will be Schengen Area nationals. They should be processed speedily, if they reach the immigration hall.

Other passengers will be connecting to long-range and other services out of the Schengen Area. They should be able to head to the departure lounge, if there is a direct connection that does not lead through passport control.

But if airports collapse, any or every passenger could find their flight cancelled. Schengen passport holder or not.

Schengen & non-Schengen arrivals

The 50 airports in the study are shown in the map linked here on the Great Circle Mapper: gcmap.com.

The two charts below show the number and proportion of non-Schengen flights arriving at each of the 50 airports.

Of the 12,814 flights arriving into the 50 Schengen Area on EES launch date, 3,640 (28.4% are from non-Schengen countries).

But as the charts below show, a slightly higher 33.3% of seats are from non-Schengen countries. 772,450 of the 2.3 million seats arriving into the top 50 airports are from non-Schengen countries.

Paris (CDG) and Faro (FAO) are particularly high on non-Schengen arrivals. 58.3% and 57.9% of seats respectively are non-Schengen.

The largest airports seem to have more non-Schengen arrivals than others. This makes sense – long-range twin-aisle services with high capacity are unlikely to be deployed locally. Instead, these aircraft will fly between important world cities.

966 (37.7%) of the 3,640 non-Schengen arrivals are on twin-aisles. 304,258 (65.0%) of the 772,450 seats arriving are on twin-aisles.

Dubai, JFK, Doha and Istanbul are the top twin-aisle services into the 50 Schengen airports, representing 63,117 seats and 197 flights, with 320.4 seats a flight. Not surprising considering all those A380s and 777s around.

Measuring risk of disruption: introducing the “busy hour”

As I mentioned earlier, I was not able to collect the data or make the reasonable assumptions necessary to perform a detailed queuing model.

But my article about whether or not hub airports are vulnerable to disruption generated a helpful insight.

The more ‘peakey’ an airport’s demand is, the easier they find it to recover from disruption. This is because when queues form, they need time to dissipate before the next batch of passengers appear. Otherwise they just get longer and longer until eventually the airport collapses if the disruption lasts long enough.

On EES day, Sunday 12^th October, I calculated the famous Herfindahl Index* for each hour of the day, which measures how concentrated an airport’s flights are in the busiest hours.

The higher the Herfindahl Index, the more concentrated the flights and the less risk there is of collapse.

High Herfindahl Index airports might be at risk of severe disruption for a small portion of the day, but provided the disruption eventually ends they should be able to resume their flying programme in due course.

At low Herfindahl Index airports on the other hand the passengers just keep arriving. Queues build up. Eventually planes cannot disgorge their passengers. Flights are cancelled. Operations collapse.

* to calculate the Herfindahl Index, measure the share of seats arriving in each hour, square those shares, and sum the squares.

To see how the Herfindahl Index is relevant, consider the chart below. This shows passengers arriving from non-Schengen flights hour by hour through the day.

Athens is the most at risk – they are busy almost all the time, so there is little chance for any queues that form to dissipate. Palermo on the other hand is the least at risk. They only have four peaks in the day.

If there is a difficultly processing passengers at one of these times, they should be done by the time the next lot arrive.

I have presented the ten airports that are most at risk of disruption on EES introduction day in the chart below.

Read more

Airports are not only places where passengers and bags get on and off planes. They are also landlords, retailers, advertisers, loyalty companies, caterers, fuel farms and, in some cases, time machines. And as well as all that they are giant car parks.

This article is about the factors that influence airport parking revenue and the implications for both airport and airline commercial models. It also reviews some recent economics papers that attempt to explain variation in how parking revenue models and results do not appear to be the same across all airports.

Parking is a valuable revenue stream for airports

In 2023 the UK’s largest airports (Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Manchester), made £673 million ($915 million) a year from car parking. That is £1.8 million ($2.5 million) on average every day.

Heathrow developed 900 new parking spaces were developed in 2024. These spaces will have contributed to non-aeronautical revenue, which grew from 36.3% of total airport revenue in Q1-23 to 37.2% in Q1-24.

Airports Council International (ACI) reckons that car parks accounted for over 20% of global airport non-aeronautical revenue in 2023. At Heathrow, which earns £564 million ($767 million) from non-aeronauticals, 20% would represent £113 million.

This is only 16.8% of the £673 million for four major UK airports, far less than a quarter. That might be because at Heathrow car parking is more than 20% of non-aeronauticals. But it might be for other reasons too. More on that later…

The United States Federal Aviation Administration, who regulate all things flying-related out west, believe that car parking is even more important for airports. Their studies show around 40% of non-aeronauticals being derived from car parking.

So car parks seem to be doing quite well for airports. But sometimes things can go wrong...

Gentle reminder: most articles are now for paying subscribers. If you have subscribed already, thank you for supporting me. If you are subscribing now, I am offering 25% off here.

Read more

Airlines and airports are highly optimised environments. So when systems work as intended, things go smoothly.

When systems go down or operations snap, passenger experience degrades quickly. Queues form, flights are delayed and operator reputations suffer.

This article investigates which major…

Read more

Airline market lore states that the industry is fiercely competitive. When an opportunity exists, airlines can supposedly send in their planes to capture market share. As a result profits per passenger are constrained and everyone in the airline business makes money apart from the airlines.

Yet the reality is more nuanced. Airlines are subject to competi…

Read more

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) reckons it can triple it’s annual passenger volume by 2030 to become an aviation super-hub.

That would increase the number of people travelling to from or through KSA airports to 330 million, around six to eight per cent of global air demand. Or so said Minister of Transport and Logistics Saleh bin Nasser Al Jasser, and …

Read more

Doctor Who is one of Britain’s cult classics. It involves a time travelling alien known as The Doctor who fights to save the oppressed and battles dastardly daleks. The Doctor travels in a time machine called the TARDIS, which looks like an old-fashioned London police box on the outside but is quite different on the inside.

Unfortunately for most Londone…

Read more