Public transport accounted for 38% of travellers surveyed, but terminal-arrival shares reached 66% at London City and 48% at Stansted, challenging uniform airline ground-access messaging.
Airline customer teams deciding between uniform and airport-specific ground-access communications should treat 38% as a survey-wide reference, not a local operating assumption. London City and Stansted recorded higher public-transport terminal-arrival shares. Their figures support testing targeted communications, but not committing resources without evidence that an airline’s own passengers display comparable behaviour. The survey also found an unchanged 13% business and 87% leisure split.
London City and Stansted’s modal shares justify airport-specific assessment by airline customer teams, but resource allocation should remain conditional on airline-level evidence rather than the 38% survey-wide result alone.
Separate the benchmark from the local decision
The survey interviewed around 175,000 passengers before departure at eight of England’s busiest airports. Responses were weighted against 225 million actual departing passengers. This provides airline planners with a substantial survey-wide reference, but does not make the aggregate result an airport-specific measure.
Public transport was used by 38% of travellers. London City separately recorded a 66% public-transport share among passengers arriving at its terminals, while Stansted recorded 48%. Preserving that distinction matters: the overall figure should not be recast as a terminal-arrival share.
For airline customer operations at London City or Stansted, the immediate choice is whether to retain uniform ground-access messaging or allocate resources to airport-specific communications. The higher local shares support evaluating targeted treatment; commitment should depend on whether airline-level passenger evidence confirms a material local difference.
Purpose mix does not resolve modal behaviour
Business journeys represented 13% of surveyed passengers and leisure journeys 87%, matching the previous year’s split. Airline commercial teams can use that stability as context, but the figures do not establish how either group travelled to a specific airport. Segment-based ground-access decisions therefore require evidence connecting journey purpose with local mode choice.
Watch next
- Airport-share trigger
Airline customer operations should revisit targeted messaging if subsequent London City or Stansted shares cease to exceed the contemporaneous overall figure.
- Airline-customer fit
Before reallocating communication resources, airline analysts should test whether their passengers’ local mode choices materially match or differ from the airport-level results.
- Purpose-mix trigger
Commercial teams should reassess segmentation assumptions if later results move materially away from the 13% business and 87% leisure split.
Sources & further reading
- Riyadh airport closed after attacks, disrupting ministerial travelsimpleflying.com ↗
- Riyadh airport closed after attacks, disrupting ministerial travelaero.de ↗
- Riyadh airport closed after attacks, disrupting ministerial travelaero.de ↗
- Houthis attack Riyadh’s King Khalid International Airportonemileatatime.com ↗
- RAF grounds its Hawk T2 fleet after crashsimpleflying.com ↗
- TUI onderzoekt datalek met klantgegevens in Belgiëupinthesky.nl ↗
- CAA publishes 2025 passenger survey resultstravelradar.aero ↗
- Royal Air Maroc to equip 41 aircraft with Starlink connectivityaerotime.aero ↗
- Alaska Airlines to retire passenger Boeing 737-700 fleetsimpleflying.com ↗
- Gainesville Regional Airport offers Gateside by TSA PreCheckregionalgateway.net ↗