BA Euroflyer chief: ‘There's something about BA's service people will pay extra for’

One way of reducing costs is to fly bigger aircraft. Euroflyer will operate 19 aircraft this summer, a mix of Airbus A320s and larger A321s, which seats up to 218. Five of the fleet will be A321s, rising to nine at the end of the summer.

“We will get to 21 aircraft by the end of the year and 24 by next summer,” he says. At its peak, BA mainline operated 36 short-haul aircraft from Gatwick, with 32 pre-pandemic. Historically, BA was 20-25% of Gatwick’s flights pre-Covid, including long-haul. “The aspiration is to have 28-30 aircraft over the next five years. Our market share will grow.”

New routes this summer will include Montpellier, to Stoddart’s immense pleasure. “When I started with BA in 2000 as a first officer, it was my first route from Gatwick, but it was stopped six months after I arrived,” he recalls. 

Other additions are Salzburg, Corfu – which Stoddart believes is a Gatwick first for BA – Mykonos and, from December, Innsbruck. Innsbruck, a wintersports gateway surrounded by mountains, requires a higher level of pilot training which, he said, would have meant added complications for the start-up in its first year.

Another destination requiring specific training is Madeira’s Funchal, which would fit BA’s customer profile nicely. “Funchal is an ongoing debate," says Stoddart when pressed on when it will take off.

Euroflyer, though, is unlikely to revive BA’s Gatwick domestic services soon. The sole domestic route at Gatwick, to Glasgow, is a mainline operation aimed at transfer passengers. “Whether that continues to be mainline is a conversation we will have in due course," Stoddart says.

When he does want to add new routes, Stoddart has a ready supply of slots thanks to BA parent company IAG. Among IAG’s stable of airlines is Spain’s Vueling, which is keeping those slots warm until Stoddart needs them. “They have been leased and will be returned to Euroflyer in due course," he continues. "I anticipate within five years. It aligns with ambitions to go back to 28-30 aircraft."

Euroflyer has a very different passenger profile to Cityflyer – so what lessons did he learn from Cityflyer? “Operating as a subsidiary within a large airline group requires specific skills; there are times when you want to be aligned to the parent and times you want to be different. It’s absolutely crucial we take the best bits of BA while bringing the energy and dynamism of a small company.”

‘The best job at BA’

Unlike easyJet, BA’s tour operation is not trade-friendly, but Stoddart insists Euroflyer is working “a lot more closely” with the leisure trade. “We have our own sales team – our ability to develop closer relationships with the trade is helped by having that smaller management team. That’s a key strategy; we have a chief commercial officer tasked with finding opportunities. It’s something we want to learn more about.”

BA’s Gatwick brand may have a low-cost approach, but is still differentiated in consumers’ eyes, Stoddart stresses. The bottle of water and snack plus more generous hand luggage allowance than easyJet are one thing, but it is the BA brand people will pay for, he believes.

“Price is always going to be important in this market, and making sure we offer great value is key," he says. "But we also have the business class product, the loyalty programme. There’s something about the BA service people will pay extra for; it doesn’t feel quite as chaotic onboard, we offer the ability to check in with an actual person and make sure the flows at the gate are as seamless as can be.”