MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Heathrow with less connections to Latin America than major European hubs

There are 25 countries and 41 airports across Central and South America, plus the Caribbean, with links to major European hubs, but none to London Heathrow

London Heathrow is connected to fewer Latin American country markets and individual destinations than all of the other major European hubs. That’s the conclusion from the analysis of which airports are missing from Heathrow’s route network in the lead-up to the anna.aero-RABA Heathrow HubLAB Conference in London on 12 June.

Heathrow HubLAB is the FREE-to-attend Heathrow Connectivity Conference taking place at the Heathrow-hosted British-Irish Airports EXPO at London Olympia 12-13 June 2018 (154 exhibitors, 3,000 visitors). HubLAB is a joint venture between anna.aero and RABA – the Regional And Business Airports Group of 40 smaller UK airports under three million passengers.

This FREE event is an important opportunity for airports to find out more about airline plans to provide new services from an expanded Heathrow. The Star Presentation will be made by easyJet’s Group Director of Strategy & Network Robert Carey, who will explain the plans for a Heathrow easyJet base. The much-needed feed created by such a base will be highly important to Heathrow’s long-haul airlines.

Indeed a key benefit of Heathrow Expansion, including a third runway, is to make extra capacity available for new routes to underserved markets. This analysis reveals there are 25 countries and 41 airports across Central and South America, plus the Caribbean, with links to other major European hubs, but no connections to London Heathrow in S18. It also identifies the 12 airports in the region with the most capacity form other competing European hubs, but no direct Heathrow services. (This analysis uses data from countries based on OAG’s classification of Latin America which includes: the Caribbean, Central America, Upper South America and Lower South America).

To compare Heathrow to the other European mega hubs you normally look at the ‘FLAPI’ airports of Frankfurt, London Heathrow, Amsterdam, Paris CDG and Istanbul Atatürk. But since Madrid is the sixth largest airport in Europe, and a major origin point for Latin America traffic, it was decided to also include the Spanish hub in this analysis, with the new grouping therefore becoming the FLAPIM airports.

Heathrow is connected to six Latin American countries and seven destinations. It is the largest FLAPIM origin airport for just one of these destinations, Nassau, Bahamas.