News

PROFILE: The Famous Five

20 February 2008 By db staff writer

Twenty years after plans were first drawn up, the opening of Heathrow Terminal 5 is at last upon us. With staggering proportions and an ambitious food and drink offering, all eyes will be on BAA’s latest commercial endeavour. By Ben Grant

THE year is 1988. Ben Johnson is cheating his way to gold, Rick Astley is promising never to give us up, Wimbledon’s Crazy Gang are lifting the FA Cup, and the first sketches are being drawn up for Heathrow Terminal 5. It has taken just shy of two decades for this epic project to evolve from the drawing board to reality, but when it eventually opens for business on 30 March 2008 London looks set to finally have an airport to be proud of.
The statistics are so mesmerising that it’s difficult to discuss T5 without descending into hyperbole. The project – Europe’s largest building site – has cost a whopping £4.2 billion and required not one but two rivers to be diverted. The terminal itself, the biggest single span building in the country, will cover 265 hectares – that’s the equivalent of 50 football pitches. It’ll be capable of handling 550 flights every day, upwards of 30 million passengers each year. And BAA is hoping to woo each and every one of them with a food and beverage offer that pushes back the boundaries of travel catering.
From a commercial point of view, Heathrow is one of the most successful airports in the world. But as anybody who has had the “pleasure” of flying in or out of the west London facility in recent years will know, it is groaning under the weight of traffic. Last year 67.8m people used the existing four terminals, far in excess of their planned capacity, meaning that ever more travellers are squeezed into an increasingly congested facility. The space issue means there is tremendous pressure to maximise the commercial potential of every square inch, and it’s a credit to the wizardry of BAA and its partners that they have created such a strong retail and F&B offer in spite of tremendously challenging circumstances.

Catherine Peachey, BAA’s head of category for food and beverage, explains that the company has been constantly coming up with new ideas, but “historically we just haven’t had the space to do everything that we wanted” in the confines of terminals 1-4. All that is set to change when T5 comes online: the mammoth new building is four times larger than T4, and from the word go commercial requirements have been high up the priority list. Peachey and her team are highly excited by the prospect – as she explains, the project has “really got the adrenalin pumping”.
BAA has perfected its art form shoe-horned into a cramped space, so the team will doubtless be well prepared to maximise the opportunity of a more spacious environment. Additionally, the “science” of generating airport commercial revenues has come on in leaps and bounds in the last decade so BAA will doubtless have applied plenty of received wisdom to T5. The location of the F&B facilities (along with the shops) was a primary consideration in mapping out the new terminal, rather than simply squeezing outlets into whatever space was available.

What’s on offer?
While the first plans for the building were drawn up in the late 80s, the business of selecting commercial partners began in earnest in early 2006. The incredible range of passengers, together with the very different travel occasions of various customers is, according to Peachey, both a massive challenge and opportunity: a family of Korean holidaymakers, for example, have enormously different requirements from the airport F&B offer than a lone German businessman. To meet all these needs BAA has selected a broad rostrum of partners, representing “a full range, from a Wetherspoon pub to a Gordon Ramsay restaurant”. (See the box on page 71 for further details on the ground-breaking development with the celebrity chef.) Intriguingly – and, dare we say, encouragingly – McDonalds was not awarded a concession.

The terminal includes 24 F&B outlets from a rostrum of 22 brands. “We have worked hard to ensure that we cater for everybody … [passengers] will be spoilt for choice.” According to Peachey the first stage was speaking to travellers to assess the F&B brands in the existing terminals; next up, her team took to the high street to check out what was on offer and, crucially, to see if the concepts could be adapted to meet the unique challenges of the airport. The final stage involved looking at up and coming brands to in a bid to predict what will be “hot in three to four years time”. While a number of the usual suspects will, of course, be present, BAA has made a concerted effort to freshen up the typical mix with a host of brands that are new to the travel arena. No less than nine of the partners are BAA debutantes (see box on page 69).
The company was committed to ensuring a fresh and exciting line-up, but Peachey stresses that it was important to ensure the newcomers were ready to adapt to the particular nuances of operating at the airport. In particular, the environment necessitates incredibly long opening hours of up to 20 hours per day, while the language barrier and the pressure of rapid turnaround must also be carefully considered.
BAA refuses to comment on the contractual arrangements that have been drawn up with any specific partner, but Peachey reports that most concessionaires have been offered deals stretching from three to seven years (with the exception of Ramsay’s Plane Food, which is believed to be a 10-year deal). While she is confident that they have got the mix right, the enormous commercial expectations of the terminal mean that the pressure is on to deliver results, and if any outlet fails to deliver BAA will have little hesitation in addressing the issue. “We won’t make any knee jerk reactions,” she explains, but after the dust has settled BAA “will make assessments … and won’t be frightened to revisit [the selection process] if necessary.”

Peachey is confident that “in the last few years we have been going in the right direction” in terms of the F&B offer at Heathrow. However, the opening of T5 seems destined to be the beginning of an exciting new chapter in the operator’s history. The airport industry has undergone dramatic change since Heathrow last expanded with the opening of T4 in 1986. BAA has been the architect or inspiration for much of this evolution, so now that the company finally has a blank canvas on which to paint, we can expect nothing short of a commercial masterpiece.

Michelin star at the airport?
Once upon a time a feed at the airport meant either a floppy sandwich in an overcrowded departure lounge, or a school canteen tray of hot sludge that was as over-cooked as it was over-priced. The idea of travel catering, it would be fair to say, doesn’t exactly conjure up images of epicurean delight. But at the heart of BAA’s T5 strategy is a desire to challenge such commonly held perceptions, and one outlet in particular is about as far removed for the standard fare as you can get. Plane Food will be the newest member of the ever-expanding Gordon Ramsay empire, and the celebrity chef has his heart set on securing the first airport Michelin star.

The 180-cover restaurant is loosely based on the Boxwood Café, Ramsay’s eatery at The Berkeley Hotel. It will offer a distinct and varied menu, inspired by seasonal produce, in a white tablecloth environment. The selection will cater for a range of different needs: from time-pushed passengers seeking a quick, indulgent bite, to transfer travellers aiming to fill a four-hour stop over with a slap-up three-course meal.
“We wanted to make a really bold statement,” says Peachey, “to really challenge how people perceive transport catering.” She explains that BAA has been aiming to create “a restaurant of this calibre” for years, but it wasn’t exactly practical within the sardine tin-like confines of terminals 1-4. As plans for T5 took shape the operator decided to make space for a fine dining facility on the upper level – “away from the hustle bustle” of the main lounge – and Ramsay was the obvious candidate. It is rumoured that the chef was offered a 10-year deal, eclipsing the three to seven years that other concessionaires have been granted. He immediately accepted, and committed a £2m budget to the project.
With a broad spectrum of restaurants in a host of countries, Ramsay’s experience is unquestionable. But Plane Food presents plenty of new challenges to consider – not least the need to enable speedy turnaround, and the three-month vetting process that is required for each and every member of staff. But the foul-mouthed celebrity has embraced the challenge, stating: “There’s a sense of excitement and anticipation about air travel that doesn’t exist in any other form, and I intend to create a menu and dining experience that matches that enthusiasm in what will become one of the most stunning venues for a restaurant anywhere in the world.” And the location is indeed stunning, providing panoramic views eastward across the world’s busiest runway and the city skyline beyond. It’s an audacious project that certainly pushes back boundaries; undoubtedly it will have registered on the radars of other airport operators around the world, and they’ll be monitoring it closely to see if the concept takes off.