No regrets, says Muirhead

The outgoing chief executive of Manchester Airports Group, Geoff Muirhead, has said that he has no regrets as his 22-year involvement with the organisation draws to a close.
Muirhead, who joined as development director in 1988, is retiring at the end of the month after a long career with the organisation – he became chief executive of Manchester Airport in 1994 and of the Manchester Airport Group in 2001.
And despite losing a number of key routes in recent years, he cites the cultural change which has allowed Manchester Airport to “sweep the boards” at industry awards as his most significant achievement.
He argued that the organisation was now more engaged with its customer base and “much more commercial” than it used to be.
“We spend what we need to – we don’t have these peaks at the year end where we’re spending bits of budgets because they have to be spent.”
He also said that the Group had become a much more efficient organisation as its customer base has spread from large, state-owned ‘legacy’ carriers into the charter holiday and low-cost airlines markets. AS a result, he said it had managed to negotiate a path between managing to reduce the amount it charges to airlines each year while maintaining profitability.
Muirhead said that Manchester Airport is not reliant on any one sector, although he expressed his disappointment in British Airways’ decision to drastically cut its routes from Manchester two years ago. The UK’s legacy carrier drooped scores of European and long haul routes from the airport, replacing them with a more frequent shuttle service to its UK hub at Heathrow.
Muirhead said that he “would have liked to have seen a greater commitment to Manchester” from BA, whose decision to retrench has meant the airport loses around 1.5m local passengers to London airports.
“We don’t want to see people going down to Heathrow to fly elsewhere. Our task is to be able to see that they can connect from Manchester.
“I don’t think anyone is doing much in terms of route development at the moment but we’ve put on a lot of routes and added new services to New York and Singapore,” he said.
He also refuses to class the group’s loss in the battle for Gatwick Airport last year as a missed opportunity, arguing that the organisation “learned a lot” from the bid and had restructured its own sources of long-term funding so that it could be more aggressive if a similar opportunity manifested itself again.
“Our debt structure is leaner and we’re less geared. We have a stronger credit rating – we recently received a strong ‘A’ from Standard & Poor’s. It gives us the capacity either to target acquisitions or to spend on business development opportunities.”
Overall, he argues that the airport retains a vital role in the city-region’s economy – not least in potentially opening new markets through the addition of new routes. A pressing task for his successor, Charlie Cornish, will be to continue efforts to land a direct route to the West Coast of the US.
“I see long-haul routes as key for us to facilitate opportunities for investment and we work closely with Midas and other partners to attract them. Its hugely important for the economy as a whole and when you go to other regions it’s the reason why the first thing many people say is that they wish they had a Manchester Airport.”
Muirhead plans to remain in the city and will continue his work on the board of Manchester Airport as well as his new non-executive chairman’s role at property firm Ask Developments.
However, he said he has no intention of taking on another full-time post.
“There’s no point in leaving the best full-time job in the North West if you’re going to fill your time with something less enjoyable.”