Is EasyJet Heading for Heathrow? ‘Let’s See’ Says Airline CEO

26.03.2024 - 09:37 / skift.com / Gatwick Airport / Johan Lundgren / Heathrow Airport / Gordon Smith / London

Could easyJet add one of the world’s most expensive airports to its route map? 

Speaking to Skift, easyJet CEO Johan Lundgren said the budget airline would consider Heathrow, subject to certain criteria being met. 

The low-cost carrier is no stranger to high-end airports. It already has a major presence at premium locations across Europe. This includes Paris Charles de Gaulle and Amsterdam Schiphol where it operates dozens of daily departures. 

Lundgren described flying into major hubs in European capitals as “very much part of our model.” He highlighted Heathrow as “probably the only prime airport, bar Madrid, that we’re not flying from.”

Alongside what he describes as “the right conditions,” Lundgren emphasized the need for any future easyJet presence to be of a certain size. “We’re not talking about one or two aircraft. You would need to get a little more scale in there.” 

Airlines usually like to spread airport operational costs across multiple routes and/or daily frequencies. A smaller presence means any fixed overheads are concentrated on a smaller number of flights, which can impact overall profitability.

So if it isn’t the business plan, what’s holding easyJet’s Heathrow ambitions back? Put simply, Heathrow is full.

The London gateway is one of the world’s busiest airports. Despite having just two runways, it boasts links to more than 200 global destinations.

Of these, 24 routes broke the million-passenger milestone in 2023. This helped lift Heathrow’s annual passenger total for 2023 to 79 million – a welcome boost from the Covid-19 slump years, but still short of 2019 when 80.9 passengers used the complex. 

Chronic constraints on capacity mean slots – the right to operate an arrival and departure – are strictly controlled.

Airlines have previously bought and sold landing rights for millions of dollars. In 2016, Oman Air reportedly paid $75 million for a slot pairing in a deal with Air France-KLM.

Although Lundgren said easyJet is interested in serving Heathrow, he appeared to rule out a similar slot deal – especially at premium prices.

The CEO suggested it may take an airline failure and the associated redistribution of landing rights for easyJet to make a move. “If there becomes a casualty among the operators at Heathrow and the pricing is right, then who knows,” he said.

Asked by Skift if this meant the launch of Heathrow was a case of when rather than if, Lundgren said “let’s see,” adding that any opportunity remained at a hypothetical stage.

Slots at Heathrow are allocated twice a year by independent body ACL. The organization, partly funded by UK airlines, is legally required to act neutrally.

Vueling, which is part of British Airways owner IAG, is one of only two low-cost carriers