Future Flight: US and Canadian route growth from Edinburgh Airport ‘absolutely out of this world’

The expansion of transatlantic air routes from Edinburgh is “absolutely out of this world”, but Scotland’s busiest airport does not expect to return to pre-pandemic passenger levels overall until next year, one of its leading officials has told The Scotsman.

Chief commercial officer (aero) Kate Sherry said there remained “a lot of scope” for future growth even with a near record 144 routes to 44 countries being flown from the airport by 32 airlines.

Speaking as part of the Future Flight series on Scottish aviation development, she said: "Things are still quite volatile and challenging, but there are a lot of really good opportunities to grow.”

Ms Sherry said the airport had surpassed its pre-Covid international passenger numbers, but the overall total was 90-95 per cent of the 14.7 million in 2019 because of lagging UK traffic.

Edinburgh Airport does not expect to surpass its record 14.7 million annual passengers in 2019 until next year. Picture: Lisa Ferguson

She said: "The transatlantic traffic is hugely exciting. This summer, it’s been absolutely out of this world in terms of the development that’s happened.”

Among Edinburgh’s six US routes, Ms Sherry pointed to Delta resuming Atlanta flights after a gap of 15 years and even increasing them from five to seven a week ahead of launch, and United adding a second daily flight to New York Newark. However, American Airlines has yet to restore its Philadelphia route.

Air Canada is extending its Toronto flights into the winter for the first time and WestJet is launching to Calgary. Ms Sherry said further transatlantic development was currently focused on the hubs of Edinburgh’s existing airlines.

Ms Sherry said: "I’m not sure if west coast America will be happening that quickly. But definitely over the long term as airline fleets evolve, there are a huge amount of new routes or growth in the US that we could go for.”

Edinburgh Airport chief commercial officer (aero) Kate Sherry was previously Ryanair's route development director

Among expansion elsewhere, she mentioned Qatar Airways increasing flights to its Doha hub three times a week, and said she hoped Emirates would restore the route to its Dubai hub – the world’s busiest – which was grounded at the start of the pandemic in 2020 after just 18 months of operation.

Ms Sherry said: “We’d love to get Emirates back, which is something we’re working very closely on with them.”

The airline increased capacity on its daily Glasgow-Dubai flights two weeks ago with the return of the 517-seat Airbus A380 – the world’s largest passenger aircraft – for the first time since 2019.

Ms Sherry, a former Ryanair route development director, was drawn to Edinburgh during her dealings with the airport, where the airline is now its biggest with 69 routes.

She said she had been particularly impressed by airport chief executive Gordon Dewar: “I thought, these are people I can work with. It has a very commercial outlook that fits with my own.

"The great thing about Edinburgh is there are so many different types of passenger.

"It’s an amazing, must-see visitor destination which is hugely in demand, and there’s also a lot of business travel, and outbound leisure demand as well, as well as people wanting to visit their friends and relatives.

"That means there’s a lot of scope at Edinburgh for new routes and opportunities to continue to grow.”

Ms Sherry said she was pursuing “quite a lot” of undisclosed new routes, and admitted to an "alarming” number of stamps on her passport from her trips to try to secure them.

She said: “I try not to launch routes to places I’ve never seen with my own eyes.”

She said Edinburgh’s passenger terminal might “potentially” need to be extended further to cope with more passengers. The airport already has a “congestion charge”-style morning peak departure fee to incentivise airlines to fly at other times.

Colleagues were assessing “what are our needs to be able to service the growth we think we can bring in”.

Meantime, Ms Sherry said much had been done to avoid a repeat of last summer’s flight disruption and baggage chaos. She said: “We are in a good place for the summer and we’re well resourced.

"We’ve also worked really hard with the airlines and [baggage handling agents] to do our best to make sure that the whole system can operate as it should. It feels like there have been a lot of lessons learned and a lot has been done, so I feel optimistic.

"There’s a lot more information sharing and collaborative working than in prior years.”

Ms Sherry joined Edinburgh Airport during the pandemic in 2020 and splits her time – when she’s not travelling – between there and her home near Dublin, following long periods of working remotely because of the Covid restrictions.

“I try to stay in every hotel in Edinburgh,” she joked. “I’ve worked my way round the swimming pools.”

The former grocery buyer for Tesco said she found herself in aviation when she “fell into the world of Ryanair” after “randomly seeing an ad” for its head of retail in 2009.

She said: “Something made me think, that’ll be a laugh – which it was.

"Ryanair is a bit of a unique environment. I remember thinking to myself I may only be here a couple of weeks. But that was it – for ten years.

“I stepped into the route development position [after two years] and never looked back.

"I absolutely loved it. It was great craic.”

And in a reference to Ryanair’s penchant for flying to obscure airports, she added: “My husband jokes I’ve been to every small town in Europe but none of the capitals.”