FORWARDER Move it Like... Nick Platts, Heathrow

MOVE IT LIKE...

I started in freight 27 years ago in Australia when I worked for the national coach company. We carried freight in the coaches and for a period I sold that freight service. Then I went off and joined the military and flew aeroplanes in the Air Force for ten years. When I came out of the military I moved to the UK, and in that transition, a colleague of mine went to work for FedEx in Singapore. At his leaving party he stood up in front of all of us and talked about his plans [to join FedEx] and I thought it sounded interesting so I applied.

NICK PLATTS

HEAD OF CARGO AT HEATHROW AIRPORT

MOVE IT LIKE...

TOTAL SIZE OF HEATHROW

1,227 hectares

NUMBER OF RUNWAYS

2

LENGTH OF RUNWAYS

Northern 3,902m x 50m Southern 3,658m x 50m

NUMBER OF AIRLINES

81

NUMBER OF DESTINATIONS

194 (in 82 countries)

ANNUAL PASSENGERS

75.7 million

CARGO VOLUME

1.54 million metric tonnes BUSIEST DAY RECORDED

31 July 2016, 257,922 passengers

NICK PLATTS, HEATHROW

NICK SAYS... ...I went off and joined the military and flew aeroplanes in the Air Force for ten years.

I

started in freight 27 years ago in Australia when I worked for the national coach company. We carried freight in the coaches and for a period I sold that freight service. Then I went off and joined the military and flew aeroplanes in the Air Force for ten years. When I came out of the military I moved to the UK, and in that transition, a colleague of

mine went to work for FedEx in Singapore. At his leaving party he stood up in front of all of us and talked about his plans [to join FedEx] and I thought it sounded interesting so I applied. I got back into freight that way, through the air cargo route as an integrator joining their operation in Poyle and running the Heathrow depot for three years. One of my secondary duties at FedEx was to be on the board of a company called CFL, which is a vendor-neutral handling facility down in the cargo area. Through that, I was able to get involved in the industry association as well.

MOVE IT LIKE...

Q A

what the industry will be doing in ten years.

number of passengers and the number of flight movements

operational team. I was looking after the 400 companies on

that we got through a space that is the relative size of a

the airfield, which exposed me to the handling side of the

postage stamp when compared to the other airports, it’s

business. Then, in May 2015, I moved into commercial to

phenomenal. If you then add in regulation and the legal

become the Head of Cargo. 2015 was a real transitionary

requirements that we have to satisfy which are unique to

year where we were doing a lot of work around developing the

the UK it gets really complicated.

industry associations, handlers, airlines, trucking companies and more. Through that phase, the role changed and I found myself looking after the air cargo operation at Heathrow.

What’s it like working at Heathrow?

Q A

How do you make strategic decisions?

It’s not a traditional business where you can wake up one morning and implement strategic decisions, it takes years.

For most infrastructure projects at the airport, we work on an average 8-10 year cycle. The cargo strategy was designed following engagement and consultation with the industry

I’ve worked for industry, government, in different sectors,

to understand their needs and demands going forward and

there is nothing quite as fast-paced as an airport especially

determining how best we can meet these. By the end of the

one the size of Heathrow – there’s just no downtime.

year, I hope to evolve the strategy further.

Whereas industry has cycles which ebb and flow, the airport runs full tilt every day of the year. Although we have 75,000 people working at the airport, only 6,500 are employed directly by Heathrow, so it’s a very big job to run one of the

A

me is thinking about

I came to the airport in January 2012 working in the

consultations and workshops and meeting with forwarders,

Q

The tricky part for

How did your role at Heathrow come about?

cargo strategy and engaging with industry. That meant a lot of

Q A

NICK SAYS...

most complicated airports in the world.

One of the most complicated airports in the world?

Q A

How do you plan ahead?

The tricky part for me is thinking about what the industry will be doing in ten years’ time so that I can cater for any big changes. We’ve got disruptors coming into the marketplace now, so I have to ask myself what’s it going to look like in the future and what do I need to plan for our infrastructure?

That’s where the complexity comes from - talking to all the

Yes, geographically. To move the number of people,

different actors, pulling together all these competing needs

the number of aeroplanes and the amount of freight that

and then working internally within Heathrow to come up

we do, through this small geographic space is nothing

with a solution that works for everybody.

short of complex. If you consider the relative size of the world’s major airports - we are physically smaller than Hong Kong, JFK, Frankfurt and Paris - and considering the

Q A

What does your sales strategy look like?

Our sales strategy is a 15-year plan which I’ve broken down into 5-year segments. The ambition for 2030 is to be the best in Europe, for cargo, in offering predictable cargo

What is the impact of a third runway?

The main impact of a third runway is that it loosens the constraints we have today due to the fact that we can’t physically get more aircraft on and off the

services. We’ll never be the biggest, we physically can’t do

airfield. We’re currently operating at about 98% of

it geographically. The first fi ve years will be spent fi xing

capacity so we’re getting quite close to the cap. A

what I characterise as the front door - fixing operational

third runway allows us to add more destinations, as

issues, improving our engagement and getting everyone

well as unlocking additional frequency to existing

to communicate. The first target is that by 2020 we meet

destinations. We exist to connect the shipper with

our ambition to be the preferred trans-Atlantic gateway

the consumer, the buyer of whatever it is that is

in Europe. The second five-year chunk is all about process

being made, so if we can do that more efficiently it

improvement where we start to leverage those infrastructure

works for everybody.

and process changes. The third five-year chunk is right into the continuous improvement cycle where we’re engineering

Q A

Q A

minutes out of the process.

How do you run such a complex operation?

Q A

What about domestic flights?

We have committed to work with airlines and government to increase our direct domestic route network to make sure that the UK market has

That’s where our people come in – we’ve got brilliant,

the access it needs. I’d love to connect Newquay,

diverse and energetic colleagues who somehow make it

for example, because Cornish crabs get trucked to

work. We talk to each other and we work together and

Heathrow – it would be much better to connect it

although we’re all competing with each other for space,

and take HGVs off the road

time and money, it works, and it works successfully. The operation over the last 12 months has come along massively, our punctuality is up and so is our customer satisfaction as a result. Now we’ve got to take all of that experience and all those learnings that we’ve taken from the passenger side of the business and turn our attention to cargo.

MOVE IT LIKE...

Q A

making the air cargo supply chain as efficient and as predictable as possible.

around 'millennials' that says they are less money oriented and more interested in feeling valued. How as an industry do we do that? If you’re out driving a truck for 10 hours a day how

There’s some interesting new technology coming through, we currently run autonomous vehicles between the business car park and Terminal 5, and are involved with further trials case of figuring out what we need on the airfield for it to benefit our customers. It’s an area of technology that is rapidly developing and we are discussing opportunities available to the cargo community. Maybe one day we will see

A

My focus...is around

What are your thoughts on autonomous vehicles?

to see how they would interact within the airport. It’s a

Q

NICK SAYS...

Q A

do you feel valued? I think that might be key.

How would you approach the driver shortage?

There are people who want to be drivers but can’t afford a licence so that upfront training cost is a barrier to entry. Especially if you’re talking about a young unemployed

autonomous cargo vehicles transporting freight from shed

person who wants to get into the industry, how do you

to ramp – who knows?

come up with £1,500 to pay for your licence? Once they have their licence it then becomes an insurance issue for

How do we get more drivers into the industry?

the company that hires them because they don’t have the experience. I’m in talks with the Heathrow Academy about creating a new scheme to combine customer service

I think there are issues around pay and conditions that need to be resolved. There is real downward pressure on pay and that’s not attracting people when you compare driving with other well-paid industries. That being said, there is research

training with technical driver training to produce a pool of highly-skilled candidates.

Q A

What about the wider impact the airport has?

I think one of the things we need to do is to create a better

airlines to manage, there are thousands of forwarders

sense of community around the Heathrow node – we want

– the scale and complexity of working with industry is

to bring everybody together to make sure they are all getting

something we’re beginning to understand. We want to

what they require. My focus in Heathrow’s cargo strategy

talk to everybody from the top 25 down to the smaller

is around making the air cargo supply chain as efficient and

forwarders because they’ve all got something to add

as predictable as possible but also the cargo ecosystem as

to the conversation.

a concern to us and we want everyone to take responsibility for their own actions. This can be anything from sharing loads to use of low emission vehicles and introducing a code of conduct with the road transport industry.

What are your thoughts on Brexit?

I’m happy to support, I’m happy to connect people and I’m happy to use the Heathrow brand if it will open doors and make things work, but I need people to come and talk to me and to share their plans with making changes there’s got to be a commercial case

such as exploring Freeports. As a member of the EU or

to make and that’s why I’m asking for them to get

the UCC, we aren’t able to operate Freeports in the UK.

involved in the future of Heathrow.

However, more work needs to be done to look into this.

How do you encourage forwarders to use Heathrow?

From the conversations I’ve had it’s clear that forwarders need predictability. They need to know that they can trust us for that section of the cargo journey. It’s down to the forwarders to find the most efficient, commercially viable and secure way to move a shipment – that’s their expertise and I’m not going to tell them how to do that. What we can do is

Q A

How can we make that happen?

There are risks, but there may be some opportunities,

more attractive destination for light assembly lines and R&D.

A

Q A

me. If forwarders want money to be invested in

After Brexit, this may change and it could make the UK a

Q

helping to drive this project forward, we just need the buy-in from industry. Whereas there are only 80 or so

well. The impact that the industry has on our neighbours is

Q A

shareholders and a board who are all fully supportive in

make sure the airport system is reliable and predictable.

What change would you like to see?

I want to start a dialogue with the forwarding community where they feel comfortable saying what they think of us and where we need to get to. We’ve got a Chief Executive,

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