CEO Interview with Heathrow Airport’s John Holland-Kaye
London Heathrow was one of the busiest airports in the world before the pandemic, but is currently only 64th in terms of weekly seats. With the UK now outside of the European Union the airport’s CEO has been critical of the UK government for “failing to even mention aviation, let alone provide full business rates relief for airports” in the 2021 Budget. He commented that it was a missed opportunity for ensuring aviation can be a "key role in the country's economic recovery". Heathrow has drawn criticism from airlines recently over a new passenger charge and will see its future client mix change. How will it adapt to changes in the structure of the airline business? We will hear an update from Mr Holland-Kaye on what he believes needs to be done.
Speakers:
- Heathrow Airport Holdings, CEO, John Holland-Kaye
- JLS Consulting, Director, John Strickland
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Transcript
John Strickland:
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to this session for CAPA Live for June. Well, today we're going to be looking at what was one of the world's leading airports. It was recently knocked off its perch by Dubai, but Heathrow is still an airport that trips off the end of the tongue for most people around the world. It's been an airport running at full capacity for several years, well, several years, really, maybe decades but, of course, that was all put paid to by the arrival of the COVID pandemic.
The last year, indeed 15 months, has been quite different. We've recently seen pictures of the CEO and airline colleagues standing on an empty runway, as recently as this week, in fact. We couldn't have imagined that 15 months ago. The airport's long been seen as a bit of a honeypot by airlines. An airport where, in many cases, it could earn higher yields, but again, that has all changed in the last year and even before the pandemic, there's often been a bit of a rough ride in the relationship between Heathrow and its airline customers.
So, how is all that playing out today, and how might the future look? I'm delighted to say we've got with us this morning, John Holland-Kaye, Chief Executive of Heathrow Airport. Welcome, John.
John Holland-Kaye:
Good morning.
John Strickland:
John, as I mentioned there, we gave a bit about the backdrop. Tell us just a few more figures for flavor on the last year. You were running at full capacity pre-pandemic, but from what I've seen, of course, traffic, like everywhere, has been massively down over the last year to a fraction of its former levels.
John Holland-Kaye:
Well, you're absolutely right, John, and technically we are still at full capacity because slot rules have been suspended in the UK, so airlines still have full entitlement to their slots.
So, you mentioned that there's a huge demand for airlines to come in. That is still the case. About eight airlines have come into Heathrow who'd never operated here before in the last 18 months, and we have a list of others who would like to come in, but they can't get the slots that they'd like to be able to operate. So the pull of Heathrow and London is still enormously strong. The challenge, of course, is there's not many places you can fly to with the restraints on travel, both in the UK and around the world.
In terms of flight activity, on a normal day, we would have about just under 1,400 flights a day. Today, we have about 400. So, very much reduced from where we'd normally be. In passenger terms, we're down about 90%. So we'd normally have about 225,000 passengers traveling through each day. We're now down to around 20,000 a day and those are really people who are going on essential travel. There are very few places that are open for free travel from the UK at the moment. So, it's largely people going on business or people who are desperately needing to reconnect with their friends and family.
John Strickland:
Absolutely.
John Holland-Kaye:
So we're at a very low level of activity, as we have been for the last 12 months.
John Strickland:
Yeah, you mentioned the traffic's down close to 90%, and I was looking back at your recent figures, indeed, even higher than that, of course, is the North Atlantic, which is something we'll talk about as we go along this morning, John. You mentioned also essential travel, but I guess also whenever essential travel's happening, it's largely point-to-point. Heathrow's always been an airport that has been big for transfer traffic. I guess transfer traffic is pretty well non-existent, is it right now, John?
John Holland-Kaye:
Well, you'd be surprised, actually. People will fly through wherever they can connect because the only people who need to fly are traveling around the world, and we're seeing the flows of passengers shifting depending on which markets are open. So we still have quite a high proportion of transfer passengers going through.
I think, actually, what we've seen more widely is that the hub model is strengthened in a pandemic and that might seem a little contradictory but what we've seen here in the UK is that over the last decade or so, particularly with Heathrow being full, a lot of airlines around the world had started to develop point-to-point long-haul services to a lot of the other airports in the UK and what's happened over the last 18 months is they've typically all consolidated into Heathrow because that's where long-haul airlines can get the biggest returns and support a viable operation.
I think that's something [inaudible 00:04:46] continue as we come out of this pandemic. It'll take some time, I think, for that long-haul point-to-point to be re-established.
John Strickland:
You mentioned you've had new airlines coming in, and I'd be quite interested to see not only if some new long-haul airlines come in. The Star, for example, from India I know is new. And so interestingly, as well, some short-haul airlines like Blue Air, a Romanian point-to-point airline largely focusing on prices to traffic that moved I think from Luton. So, I'd like to ask you in a few minutes a bit more about that future mix of traffic and what it might mean.
And what a saving grace, perhaps, in the last year, of course, has been cargo. Your cargo, reduction in volume, has been much less. Indeed it may, you'll tell me in a moment, may have actually recovered almost to a level that it was because there's such demand for cargo of a limited capacity that's been operated.
John Holland-Kaye:
Well, you're right, cargo has continued and Heathrow is the UK's biggest port by value of any kind of port, not just of aviation and most of the aviation cargo volume in the UK goes through Heathrow, so it's a hugely important part of the UK economy. But most of that travels in the belly hold of passenger planes, of course, and without those long-haul routes flying, we've actually seen quite a significant reduction in cargo volumes, down about a quarter compared to 2019, which is quite a contrast with some of the European hubs, which have seen cargo volumes actually going up during the last 18 months.
And this, I think, is a real issue for the UK economy. That cargo represents UK exports getting around the world and imports coming in here to feed our supply chain and until we see those cargo routes re-established and the passenger routes in particular that support them, then the UK economy is going to be held back. It really is a good symbol of just how important aviation is, not for people going on holiday, which is where the focus tends to be, but for a small international trading nation like the UK, to be able to get out to the world and that's why it's so important that we get those air bridges, particularly to places like the United States, reopened as soon as possible.
John Strickland:
Just practically, John, we've seen images of Heathrow, as you said, passenger numbers are small, but that can still be, of course, pressure points when people arrive. We've had some pictures of people queuing sometimes for hours on arrival with the paperwork that has to be done now, and is that a Heathrow issue or is that a Border Force issue, or indeed is it a mixture of both of them?
John Holland-Kaye:
Well, it's really a question of the new processes that Border Force have to carry out and as you know, airports are designed for flow. We're not designed to hold large numbers of people, and we've all worked hard over the last decades to make it a smooth and quick, and predictable journey as we can, increasingly using automation.
What's happened with COVID is that governments have introduced a lot of new checks for where people are staying, whether they've had certain tests, and all of those need to be checked at some point. And our government, as many other governments have, are requiring those to be checked both when you're checking in before you get on the plane, but also at the border and that is what is leading to congestion.
That is starting to change and Border Force have started to automate that process. These things always take a bit longer than you would hope that they would, but we are starting to see the benefits of that automation and smoother journeys through the airport, and we should soon be at a point where if you can use an e-gate, then all of the information that you have to provide on your tests and where you're going to be staying while you're in the country will be linked to your passport so all you need to do is to scan your passport at the e-gate in the normal way, and that will carry out the checks that need to happen at the border, and we'll get back to that smooth flow that people have come to expect at Heathrow.
John Strickland:
How long is that going to take, John, because that's the surprising thing, we've seen a move down the track of automation for arrivals in recent years and many people will be familiar with Heathrow and elsewhere of the use of these e-gates and perhaps to me the general public. It's very surprising they haven't been used right away. The whole idea of queues backing up and having to give this paper to a border agency was pretty unbelievable in this day and age. Is it going to be a long process?
John Holland-Kaye:
No, that's happening right now. And we had made good headway in widening the eligibility for e-gate so that not only UK and EU citizens can use them, but also people from the U.S. and Canada and Japan, and a lot of other low-risk countries. So actually, for many people coming to the UK, it is a world-class experience getting through the border, until COVID came along and brought in all these manual processes.
But those are now being upgraded. The upgrade started last month at Heathrow, and certainly, over the next few months, we should get back to a much smoother, more automated process. So that's what we're focused on, and as an airport, we're just focused on getting people through the airport as quickly and smoothly as they can, putting them in control of their time, and letting them get on with their journey.
John Strickland:
The practicalities that go with testing regimes have come in. We're a long way further forward than a year ago with testing typically before flights. The airlines have themselves introduced automation with, for example, the IATA Travel Pass to, as you said, allow this documentation to be on phones. A set amount of work is done before customers even get to arrivals point, but in the UK, we've got the government using this so-called traffic light system, red amber green, and at the moment, many countries are on red or amber. There's very few indeed on green for easy travel and easy processing.
So, people coming in from red zone countries to Heathrow have been mixing in queues with those who are from amber and green, and there's been a lot of consternation about that. You've announced you're going to separate this out, actually by using one of the terminals that currently is not being used. Could that not have been done quicker, John, given that the airport is at such low levels of capacity? I'm sure there's a lot of logistical issues. Tell us a bit about that.
John Holland-Kaye:
Yes, and the government introduced this red amber green system a few months ago and at the time they banned direct flights from red countries. So, if you were coming into the UK from one of those countries, you had to connect through the Middle East or Turkey or increasingly through European hubs to get here. That actually made it very difficult to segregate the red list arriving passengers, because you couldn't distinguish them from anyone else until they got to the immigration desk.
Now, we had processes in place to make sure that people were kept safe regardless of that, but clearly, it would be better for everyone if we could segregate those passengers, and actually, it makes it much easier to give them a smooth journey through the airport. So for the last month or so, we've had a trial where for four of the red-listed countries, we've allowed direct flights to come in. And while that trial has been on, we have been getting ready one of our terminals to act as a red arrivals facility that can be dedicated just for those passengers.
And that's what we opened last week and so from now on, anyone coming in from a red list country will be able to come in on a direct flight and that will take them straight to the red arrivals facility, where they can be looked after in a much more efficient way by Border Force and taken onto hotel quarantine. And, of course, that means that we can have much better segregation between red, amber, and green passengers in [crosstalk 00:12:38].
John Strickland:
It must be quite a big logistical exercise I guess John, because the aircraft themselves won't physically change or alter that terminal, will they? I think about British Airways, for example, bringing in normal flights to Terminal 5. I think it's... Is it Terminal 3 you're going to use for this?
John Holland-Kaye:
We're currently using Terminal 3, because that was the most ready for opening up, and we'll be switching over to Terminal 4 as soon as we can.
John Strickland:
I guess it's going to be a big busing operation.
John Holland-Kaye:
And both Terminal 3 and Terminal 4 [crosstalk 00:13:02]. That's exactly what we're doing, and we spent a bit of time trying to work out the most efficient way of doing this because we don't want to be towing aircraft around the airport because of course, this is only the arrivals facility. We still have people departing who want to go through the normal terminal and have all the facilities that are available to them there.
So you're absolutely right. We are having people arrive at their normal terminals. So for British Airways, that will be Terminal 5. For Virgin, Terminal 2, as they now are and then for arriving passengers, we would bus them to the red arrivals facility, and then they would have a much quicker journey through immigration than they would normally, and their bags would go to that terminal as well.
So we can manage that very smoothly, but the plane is still on the stand that it will be using for departures so all the handling takes place there and the turnaround can be very quick and of course they can manage the cargo part of the journey very smoothly as well. So it's a good setup. It's worked well over the last week with the four countries being involved in that pilot, and we hope that that will work well as we scale up and then move over to Terminal 4 later this month.
John Strickland:
John, I mentioned there have been frictions between you as an airport and airline customers in the past about charging, and I'm sure we could have a complete day discussion about that topic, but just to try to touch on a few points. In recent months, you introduced a type of infrastructure charge, I think round about eight pounds to cover certain shared costs in terms of passenger processing. Obviously, that went down like a lead balloon with the airlines.
Your argument is that you had to recover cost. It wasn't about profiteering, but was that not something you could have swallowed? Heathrow has always been top of the heap if you like, in terms of their success financially as an airport given what I was saying about the airline side of passenger yields. So if you can't swallow this in pay, who can? Everybody's hurting. Airlines around the world and airports. Was that not some of it could have been handled differently, John?
John Holland-Kaye:
Well, it'd be worth bearing in mind the way that airport economics work. We're a massive infrastructure asset. There's 16 billion pounds of investment that we've made here at Heathrow. We invest that money privately ourselves. We're economically regulated and having invested that money, we then give the slots for free to airlines who can then sell them on to other people. And as you know, slots at Heathrow can go up to $75 million per slot. Something not seen at any other airport in the world.
So we provide tremendous value for the airlines, but all of our income depends on passengers coming through and while there are no passengers, then we have no income and no way of paying for that long-term infrastructure investment and that is the way the regulation works, but there is one part of our income which is a pass-through charge, which is normally charged on a per-bag basis for the baggage system and in slightly different ways for some other costs and that's something that we can recover directly from airlines. And it was they actually who proposed to us that we recover that through this per passenger charge. That's not normally done in that way.
We had proposed to them to deal with things in a different way that wouldn't directly go to passengers. This is what they chose for us to do. So we've gone along with that because, of course, we always like to come to an agreement with our airline customers about the best way to deal with these things and that is working very well. The chances that £8.90, it sounds like a lot of money in normal world, but at the moment only people who are desperate to travel and can afford to travel and afford the hundreds of pounds that they have to pay for testing are traveling anywhere. So it's a relatively small part of our journey, but it makes a small contribution to keeping the airport going at a time when we have almost no revenue.
John Strickland:
Is it something that probably would be taken away as volumes rise? Because you say it's a small amount. My thinking was of course the short-haul customer. You look at typical low-cost pricing are the airlines like easyJet who, yes, they're not a Heathrow customer, but British Airways would have to compete with that for example. It's quite a large amount relative to a ticket price but accepted you say not many of these type of customers are traveling right now until perhaps we add the [inaudible 00:17:38] experience in recent weeks, but granted there are other costs.
John Holland-Kaye:
Yeah, it's a very small amount compared to the overall price at the moment, and it is only by recovering some of our costs from last year, and it's a very small proportion of our costs. Running Heathrow normally costs about 1.2 billion pounds a year. It's a massive outgoing, and it's a very fixed-cost business. Although we've taken massive cost reductions, including closing the building that I'm sitting in at the moment to save money, we cannot save significant cost because just keeping the airport safe to operate, all the equipment working safely, keeping it secure, costs us the vast majority of that 1.2 billion pounds that I mentioned.
So we have to keep that funded through this very difficult downturn. I think this has been a sensible way of doing it but bear in mind that when Portugal was opened up, airlines were able to double their charges because of so much demand for people to get into Portugal. As a regulated business ourselves, we can't do that. Our prices have actually come down this year to airlines in spite of everything else that is going on. So that is just the way that the market works. Airlines have more opportunity to make more money in the good times than we do, but we do need to be able to fund this enormous investment we've made in a world-class asset here at Heathrow.
John Strickland:
It was the airlines that had to raise money to keep themselves going typically to shareholders, to financial markets. What have you done there, John? This is a small part. We were just talking about there with the charge. Have you gone out to your own shareholders or to markets to raise liquidity to tide you over through this particular time?
John Holland-Kaye:
Yeah, we've done exactly the same things, and we very quickly moved to increase our liquidity. So we now have over four billion pounds of cash in the bank. We've raised equity into our regulated business so that it's a combination of both debt and equity, and that will make sure that we can survive through even our worst-case scenarios because it's often cashflow that is the problem with companies being able to continue.
And that's massively important because we are a national asset in the UK. We're the biggest port. We're the gateway for international travel and trade, and yet we are privately owned, so it's important that we have the confidence. We're going to be here for the long-term, and we will be.
John Strickland:
Well, looking at that long-term, John, you alluded to the fact that the hub model, of course, it's still important to everybody. I'm sure you and your team are sitting there every day, everyone is sitting wondering what the future's going to be like when we come out of this crisis, how will the dust settle? And that's one of my questions.
What kind of evaluations are you doing? What scenarios? Because we've talked already about some new kinds of airlines coming in now, maybe on a temporary basis, but we know, for example, we have JetBlue is good to arrive later this summer. A different kind of business model still in the very important North Atlantic market, but a different approach. We know that pre-pandemic an airline like EasyJet, one of the largest low-cost European airlines has expressed a very positive desire to come into Heathrow. How are you working this out in terms of your likely future mix of customers, and what will that mean for your planning?
John Holland-Kaye:
Well, it's a good question and I think what we've seen through the pandemic is a lot of stability. The airlines who are here want to keep on operating here, but of course, some of them aren't allowed to use the slots as much as they would want to and that's allowed us to bring in some other airlines on a temporary basis to use some of that additional capacity.
Now, the incumbent airlines have a full waiver for their slot usage in the UK, so they don't have to give their slots back to us if they're not going to use them and that means we've had to turn away some business that we'd like to be able to receive coming in here.
But if we step back a bit, what we can see at Heathrow is we have a very resilient business model. We've got a good combination of long haul and short-haul, which gives us a lot of protection at times like this when sometimes it's the short-haul markets that are closed, sometimes it's the long haul markets and so it allows us to serve as many markets as possible. We tend to be seen as being a premium airport with full-service airlines. As you say, we have a number of low-cost carriers here as well, and many who would like to be able to operate here as well [crosstalk 00:22:27].
John Strickland:
Well, John, just to jump in on that key point, John, do you think we may see a shift because as you said, you're a premium airport and I know myself from airlines I've worked for, that has certainly been the case, particularly on some of the North Atlantic routes with premium cabins being very full. That means a better ability of airlines, even if they're not happy to stomach the challenges in your point of view, that will affect your retail mix as well, in terms of the non-aeronautical revenues. Are you of the school of thought that not all of this premium business travel will come back, or do you think it will in the course of time?
John Holland-Kaye:
I think business travel will come back. We might see a bit of a change in mix, particularly in the short term, but I think it will come back. Most of us who have spent too long on Zoom calls like this one, long for the days when we can actually see one another in-person and get back to business as it used to be. And that's exactly what we've seen happening in the United States, where the domestic market has opened up. Business travel has come back.
But we're pretty resilient against those changes and if we were to see airlines shifting the mix in their cabins towards more people in economy and premium economy, less at the front-end of the plane, that actually gives us more passenger capacity and, of course, we are incentivized to have as many passengers as we can. That's the best way to keep charges down, and so we're very comfortable with any changes that might come that way. I don't expect [crosstalk 00:24:00].
John Strickland:
You mentioned low-cost airlines, John, easyJet obviously it's a short-haul airline and a low-cost carrier. There could be others who might want to come in. That will certainly mean lower average revenues across the mix of airline customers. Do you think that might mean a change, one, of the charge structure, but two, in the type of infrastructure you have? Are you looking to maybe adapt as a result of this crisis, in some ways to be more flexible, that you could change the way in which you use your infrastructure and indeed what you invest in it for future decades?
John Holland-Kaye:
I think we'll play that by ear. At the moment, we haven't seen airlines giving up any of their slots so we just don't have the capacity to bring in someone that scale such as an easyJet. But of course, we'd love to have them here if they are able to get hold of slots to make it worth their while to do so.
But the fact that low-cost carriers want to come into Heathrow as it is, says a lot about the value that we bring to airlines. This isn't just about our charges. It's about the value we bring. $75 million a slot per, the premium that airlines are able to generate on Heathrow routes says a lot about the value that we bring from the infrastructure we have. Now, of course, if the airline needs change, or passenger needs change, we will modify what we do.
So we are thinking about if the mix of passengers changes do we need to change our retail mix? If airlines are looking for more remote served services, rather than the peer service, which historically airlines have wanted to have at Heathrow, then, of course, there are ways in which we can meet that demand, but we don't have enough demand yet to significantly change the model that we need to have here at Heathrow at the moment, and underneath it all, we provide tremendous value to the airlines who serve Heathrow and there is huge demand to come in and operate for the kind of infrastructure and the kind of cost base that we have today.
John Strickland:
And it's always a challenge, isn't it, that airports and airlines are out of line in terms of planning. You've got to maybe plan buildings, infrastructure, 10, 20 years ahead, and airlines, and maybe you're planning their fleet, even in the good times, if they're lucky, maybe a couple of years ahead. But we certainly have seen your major carriers such as British Airways and Virgin retiring vast waves of the largest aircraft and the ones that have the most business class seats like the 747 fleets and BA standing down at least for the time being the A380. So I guess it's something you do have to evaluate in a number of different ways.
John Holland-Kaye:
Yes. And we've modified the airport significantly for the A380 over the last 20 years, and now we'll see that changing. That's always the nature of aviation. We try to look ahead. Try to make sure we have the right facilities, but a lot of the changes we've been talking about really show the potential benefits that Heathrow can bring if we had more capacity.
That might seem odd to be talking about at a time when demand is so low, but the fact that airlines want to come into Heathrow, the fact that there's a whole mix of new airlines out there, and that people like JetBlue, want to come in and compete against the incumbent airlines and offer fantastic value to their customers, says a lot about the potential of expanding Heathrow.
John Strickland:
[crosstalk 00:27:30] to reducing average fares. I'm just conscious John, the clock is running against us. I'm going to try to somehow tie together two key points building on what you were saying there. One is, you've mentioned a couple of times about slot waivers. Do you think they're going to carry on for the foreseeable future because we're certainly not having a normal summer this year? Next winter, well, that's always tough going anyway. And in terms of the different mix of customers coming in, will we see Heathrow getting back to full capacity, and would that mean that the third runway is still going to be something which is valid in years to come, or is that now likely off the agenda for the foreseeable future?
John Holland-Kaye:
Well, it terms of slot waivers then yes I think we will see waivers continuing through the winter and I think that'll be a helpful way to support the airlines. I would like to see airlines handing back slots earlier so that we can use them and just make the most of the capacity we have here, because there is demand for people to be able to fly to markets that aren't currently served. So I think that would be a useful addition.
But for the long term, absolutely, we will need more capacity here at Heathrow. The UK has left the EU. We're trying to carve a role as a global trading nation independently, and we need to have a leading hub airport here in the UK to provide the trade links and supply lines that the country will need for the future. We need to be as well connected to China and India as we are to the United States. In fact, we need more connections to United States if we are to play a role right at the heart of the global economy, and we can only do that with more capacity here at Heathrow.
And the fact that airlines want to come in here even today, shows what strong demand there is. The fact that we have people like JetBlue able to offer fantastic value to their passengers, shows that there's a real consumer prize to doing this, as well as the opportunity of developing more trading links. So it's absolutely the right thing to do and the best time to start doing it is actually before you need the demand again. We will come back to full capacity, certainly for flights, and then shortly after that for passenger numbers, and we'll need to have the runway capacity to be able to serve the growth when it comes through in the late 2020s, early 2030s. [crosstalk 00:29:52]
John Strickland:
You've had to get through a long political process on this, and it's not over yet, and it's highly sensitive with politicians, and the question is how do they balance, as you said, the economic imperative versus the sensitivities of environmental impact, which this is a topic that's certainly going to become bigger for the industry. I guess it's something you shouldn't have to persist with.
John Holland-Kaye:
Climate change is a real issue that all of us in aviation need to tackle. And if we don't, then we're not going to have an aviation sector in 30 years' time. Unfortunately, many of us are now getting behind this and getting on with a plan to make it work and the answer particularly for long haul flight will be to commit to net-zero, move to sustainable aviation fuels, and we need to target at least 10% of sustainable aviation fuels blended with kerosene by 2030, and at least 50% by 2050 if we're going to play our part and that will unlock the opportunity for growth in aviation, around the world.
And what we're pushing for through Prop 26 and leading up to [inaudible 00:31:00] next year is to have a global agreement on this and a common mandate across governments for meeting those targets for sustainable aviation fuel use, because that will unlock the investment that's going to be needed of hundreds of billions of dollars to supply the sustainable aviation fuel we will all need. And this change is happening very quickly.
We've had our first major shipment of sustainable aviation fuel into Heathrow. It's all gone very smoothly. What we need is for the production to be scaled up very quickly. And I should give credit here to British Airways and IAG, Virgin, the U.S. airlines, who have really taken the lead in committing to net-zero and to these targets of 10% by 2030, because it really does start to move [inaudible 00:31:47] and now we need to see other airlines around the world making similar commitments to make it easier for their governments to sign up to a global agreement at [inaudible 00:31:57] next year.
John Strickland:
And, John, just mentioning those airlines and the clock is really beating us so if you can try to give me the quickest and straightforward answer you can on this one, we've seen just in the last few days, yourselves at Heathrow, working with a number of your airline partners to push, to get the North Atlantic opened up again. We're having the G7 meeting in the UK. You and they believe it's the right time to get the North Atlantic opened up again. Is this the shape of things to come? Are airports and airlines working together more than squabbling? It's like an uncomfortable marriage sometimes. Is this going to be an improved future relationship, do you think?
John Holland-Kaye:
Well, I hope so. And certainly, when I look at airports and airlines around the world, those that work best are those where there's a really close relationship between the airlines and the airport. You look at places like Emirates and Dubai, really fantastic close working, helped by common ownership in that case. We don't have that here, but I think our model is very powerful, and the more that we can work together to support the recovery and the success of our airlines, the better it will be for all of us.
So I'm very collaborative. I want to work closely with airlines and actually one of the good things to come out of the last 18 months is the really close working that we have had, and it makes it much easy to make the right decisions quickly and to get on with things. I think yesterday's call with all of the transatlantic airlines from the U.S. and the UK that I was involved with is a great model for the kind of collaboration we need to have in the future. There are some things we might always disagree on, but there are far more things that we all agree on and should work on together to make happen.
John Strickland:
Great. Well, John, thanks so much for your time today. Let's circle back in three months' time to see what progress you're making and hopefully in a few years' time, we can look back on all this as a major learning experience which put us in the right shape for the future. So John Holland-Kaye, Chief Executive of Heathrow Airport Limited, thanks very much for your time today and over and out from me, John Strickland.
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