Flybe boss blasts Gatwick for ignoring regions in Heathrow battle

Saad Hammad, chief executive of Flybe, has hit out at Gatwick airport for failing to address the needs of Britain's regions in its battle with rival Heathrow to win support for expansion.

The boss of the UK's biggest regional carrier said that Heathrow had been "more specific about what they are going to do" on take-off and landing slots and on charges for domestic flights.

"I don't think Gatwick has been as sensitive as we would like," Mr Hammad said. "Right now, Heathrow has one up on Gatwick in terms of listening to regional needs and requirements."

The west London airport has said it would look at cutting charges for regional flights as part of a regular review of fees, though no binding commitment has been made. Flybe has no flights into Heathrow and just one from Gatwick to Newquay, having sold 25 pairs of slots to low-cost carrier easyJet in 2013.

A spokesman for Gatwick said that the airport had the "best" regional links of any London airport and would remain significantly cheaper than Heathrow, even if they reduced their domestic fees. It is planning to set out its own proposals on how to improve fees further later this month.

"UK plc needs a network of long-haul airports that provide direct services around the world, rather than forcing all flights through a single-hub airport in the capital," the Gatwick spokesman said.

Mr Hammad's comments about Gatwick came as he pledged a return to underlying profit after a fourth quarter in which passenger revenue increased by 5 per cent and the number of customers rose by 15 per cent.

"We think the worst is over in terms of losses," he said. Analysts were forecasting a return to the black for the year to the end of March 2016 and "we want to deliver against those expectations".

His aspirations will be welcomed by investors who put up £150m in a capital raising in March 2014 to fund a three-year turnround. In January, shares in Flybe fell 23 per cent after it warned that it expected only to break even this year. The shares, which have fallen by 61 per cent over the past year, closed largely unchanged on Tuesday at 57.75p.

Mr Hammad said that he was particularly encouraged by the fact that the carrier had already sold 31 per cent of the seats available in the first three months of the current financial year.

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Flybe had also delivered on its promise to cut costs, having made some £71m in savings in the past 18 months.

The biggest challenge remained the seven 180-seat aircraft which were costing the group millions to run and were slated for disposal. The Embraer E195 aircraft were too big for a model based on regional flights into smaller regional airports.

Flybe was in discussion with eight potential acquirers, Mr Hammad said, and he was confident that the talks would conclude successfully after which the carrier would return to profit. "Clearly we have more to do," he said. "But we have a clear line of sight to profitability."

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