Q6 Full Business Plan - Heathrow Airport

3. Our vision and priorities for Q6
3.4 Significant improvements for Q6
3.4.1 Improved punctuality
Despite Heathrow operating at 99% capacity for much
of the day, passengers still expect their flights to depart
and arrive on time. To achieve this, the airport and airline
community need to design predictability into the
schedule, manage variations in the schedule and then
recover quickly if disruption occurs.
By the end of Q6, punctuality will improve to over 80%
– and we aspire to move towards 90% –, of flights
arriving or departing within 15 minutes of their
scheduled time, through collaboration with NATS, the
CAA and the airline community. Helping the airport to
run smoothly on as many days as possible sounds simple
but in reality requires significant investment of time and
resource across the whole airport community including
NATS and the CAA.
The outcome for the passenger will be more reliable
journey times, taking the stress out of the airport
experience, as aircraft queuing time to take off will be
reduced, taxiing times shortened and extensive stacking
as aircraft wait to land will no longer be the norm as
it is today. The outcome for Heathrow’s airlines will be
increased efficiencies, better aircraft utilisation and a
more sustainable business.
3.4.2 Harmonised direct and transfer security
queue standard
We believe Heathrow already operates the shortest
passenger security queue standard of any major hub in
Europe, and that passengers on the whole are very
satisfied with the service provided, as shown in Figure 3.4.
We will extend our existing service level for direct
passengers to transfer passengers, so that 99% of the
time passengers will wait less than ten minutes –
whether a direct passenger or a transfer passenger. We
also propose a harmonised five minute queue standard
for both direct and transfer passengers.
Figure 3.4: Passenger satisfaction with current security
queue standards
100%
80%
60%
40%
Satisfaction with security
3% 5%
62%
66%
This can be achieved through a range of local and
international initiatives using technology and process
innovation – such as the introduction of airport
collaborative decision-making, and by introducing
some of the concepts from the Future Airspace
Strategy (FAS) and Single European Sky ATM
Research programme (SESAR).
20%
0%
35%
28%
Outbound passengers
Transfer passengers
Excellent Average/Good Poor/Very Poor
Punctuality is underpinned by resilience which will
continue to be enhanced by a range of processes,
people and infrastructure changes, including additional
runway rapid exit taxiways to enable landing aircraft to
more quickly leave the runway, preparedness and
planning for events such as snow, and the use of
operational freedoms, tested in conjunction with
the DfT (Department for Transport) and CAA in Q5.
To further improve our existing baseline level of service
for all passengers, we propose moving to an equivalent
per passenger measure once the measurement
technology becomes available. This proposition will be
easier for passengers to understand, and provides a more
reliable and consistent service for passengers and their
airlines without increasing operational costs.
Page 20 Heathrow Q6 Full Business Plan - Public version | Chapter 3 © Heathrow Airport Limited 2013