London’s Gatwick Airport offers incentives to attract Indian carriers

New Delhi: London’s Gatwick Airport is offering incentives to attract Indian carriers at a time when airlines such as Vistara and IndiGo are planning to launch flights to the British capital and slots at the main Heathrow Airport are scarce.

“Particularly with Jet (Airways shutting its operations) last year, we think it is a good opportunity to establish routes from Delhi to start with and Mumbai later,” Gatwick Airport CEO Stewart Wingate told ET in an interview. “We have met Air India, Vistara, IndiGo and SpiceJet.” Wingate said Vistara has applied for slots at Gatwick but it is also pursuing Heathrow. “So, if they were to come to Gatwick… there is a competition between us and Heathrow to secure the slots,” he said.

While Vistara, a joint venture between Tata Sons and Singapore Airlines, is in the final stages of launching medium-haul international flights and is set to start inducting Boeing 787 Dreamliners from February-end, IndiGo had applied for approvals from the government but has not announced any plans yet. SpiceJet has said that it would like to operate low-cost flights on dual-aisle aircraft like Dreamliners.

Wingate said Gatwick is not just the second largest airport in the UK but is also working to create new slots at the airport by increasing efficiency in the system.

“At Gatwick, we have released a few extra slots and will also be releasing a few more slots. At this time, we have 55 movements per hour and we have a plan to increase to 60 movements per hour in the next five years,” said the Gatwick Airport CEO. “By about 2026-27, we plan to increase our movements to 70 per hour. All of that growth will be available for airlines coming to our airport. So, we are not just providing slots today but will also be providing slots for future expansion.”

Gatwick Airport, which is less than half of Heathrow in terms of cost to airlines, also has an incentive scheme for airlines that plan to launch flights.

“We routinely offer incentives, particularly to long-haul carriers,” said Wingate. “We can either offer discount in charges in the early years or we normally create a marketing fund, which enables us and the airlines to market the new route at both ends of the new route. We have done that with a couple of long-haul carriers.”