Airport boss outlines business challenges

The Chief Executive of Birmingham International Airport has outlined the challenges faced by the aviation industry to attract passengers and survive the credit crunch at an annual lecture.

Paul Kehoe spoke about how his team has approached promoting the Airport to potential travellers against a backdrop of competition from other airports, security issues and volcano eruptions.

The Crystal Lecture, now in its 17th year, is an event for business people hosted jointly by the University of Wolverhampton Business School and Chartered Management Institute.

The lecture, titled High hopes in hard times, also covered the hurdles in expanding the runway, terminal and rail links and how to grow and develop Birmingham Airport to meet its targets of 18+m passengers by 2017, compared to 9m passengers in 2007.

Professor Kit Field, Acting Dean of the University of Wolverhampton Business School, said: “Paul gave us a great insight into the work to raise the airport profile, showing us how his team have approached promoting the Airport to potential travellers, how they have been building its brand, the work done by the team on their digital marketing to achieve this, plus the work that has gone into developing the airport facilities and customer experience while there.

“He talked us through the profiles and trends in passengers at Birmingham Airport and comparisons to other airports, whilst covering operations challenges from the different airlines and baggage handling to developing effective office teams. He also explained the commercial challenges in how the airport income is generated and things that can affect this.

“He not only has high hopes, but also big plans in action, in both hard and challenging times.” The event was held at the University of Wolverhampton’s Telford Campus in Priorslee on Tuesday, 19 October 2010.

ENDS

Picture: Professor Kit Field, Acting Dean of the University of Wolverhampton Business School; Gerwyn Jones, Chairman Wolverhampton Branch of the Chartered Management Institute; Paul Kehoe, Chief Executive of Birmingham Airport and guest speaker and Paul Harris, Business Consultant, Institute for Innovation and Enterprise.

For more information please contact Vickie Warren in the Media Relations Office on 01902 322736