Interview with Gordon Dewar. He mainly talks about SAF, but he also talks about potential destinations, US pre-clearance and the road link from the roundabout at Gogar.
https://archive.is/wt87W
Dewar expects Edinburgh this year to exceed its pre-Covid passenger numbers of 14.7 million in 2019.
He also highlighted the potential for more long-haul connections in the coming years.
He said North American demand continued to be strong and underpinned the airport’s ambition of becoming a pre-clearance facility for United States customs.
Dewar said airlines were “clamouring” for that, which would place Edinburgh alongside Dublin and Shannon as allowing people and goods to be cleared prior to entering the US.
He said: “We have to get the two countries to sign the agreement and there seems to be a real growing understanding of how beneficial that would be. It just needs a bit of will to get in a room and sign off the final details.”
Dewar also sees potential from Asia in the years ahead and said: “We know for a fact that economically there is room for at least three or four Chinese connections but you have to persuade people to do it.
“We have not got a foothold yet in India and that is massive. There have been no Indian carriers looking at European expansion or if they did it was towards the main hubs but that is changing.
“Then there is Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, which are a bit further away, mostly because of airline strategy rather than lack of demand.”
Dewar is also hopeful progress can be made this year on creating a road link to the airport from the Gogar area.