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OCR for page 109
Integrated Baggage and Ticketing Strategies 109
tion and are associated with greater amounts of baggage. The issue of dealing with baggage, then,
requires the review of a candidate set of strategies to deal with the problem.
A Case Study in Baggage Check-in at a Downtown Terminal
The downtown check-in terminal at the London Underground's Paddington Station has been
chosen for a case study of the impact of having or not having off-site check-in services for airline
passengers using rail for access to the airport. Data for other potential case studies, including
the London Underground's Victoria Station, will be reviewed for relevance to the Heathrow
Paddington case study. The Paddington rail terminal facility had the highest level of check-in
amenities of any check-in facility in the Western world. (The Hong Kong check-in terminals at
downtown and Kowloon stations boast similar technologies, as they were designed during the same
period as the Paddington facility. However, the Hong Kong transit agency, the MTRC, is now con-
sidering the phase-out of baggage check-in facilities at these terminals also.)
Unlike Victoria Station, Paddington Station offered check-in services from nearly all of the
major airlines operating out of its destination airport, Heathrow. Victoria Station's check-in
to Gatwick Airport offered services only for British Airways and, for most of its existence,
American Airlines. The Paddington Station terminal offered a highly automated conveyor sys-
tem for baggage; whereas, at Victoria Station, baggage was put on the train manually. The check-
in facility was located quite visibly at the Paddington Main Line station; whereas, the British
Airways check-in facility at Victoria Station was located on an upstairs mezzanine level out of
view of travelers on the main level. In short, the Paddington check-in service (see Figure 5-1) was
designed to represent the state of the art; it represents the ideal model for a case study.
The HeathrowPaddington Station Check-in System
The Paddington Station check-in service was opened in June 1999. Local managers report that
about one airport-bound rail passenger in five (22%) chose to utilize the downtown check-in
services. Check-in services for airlines serving the vast majority of Heathrow passengers were
PHOTO: M. A. Coogan.
Figure 5-1. The check-in terminal at Paddington Station in full operation (2000).
OCR for page 110
110 Ground Access to Major Airports by Public Transportation
provided, ultimately these airlines grouped as OneWorld, the Star Alliance, and the Swissair-
based Qualiflyer Group. (See both TCRP Report 62 and TCRP Report 83 for a complete descrip-
tion of the operations of the baggage-handling system.)
The Qualiflyer Group was the first to pull out of providing services at Paddington Station,
claiming that the airlines it represented thought the operating costs were too high; shortly after,
Swissair collapsed, taking the alliance with it. After September 11, 2001, no U.S. carriers were
allowed to check bags on flights to the United States from the facility, which affected services
from American Airlines and United Airlines.
The major event in dismantlement of the system occurred in 2003 when the flagship carrier
of London, British Airways, announced it would depart the system it had championed and advo-
cated (Figure 5-2). After the collapse of services for the British-based OneWorld alliance, the
remaining services of the Star Alliance were withdrawn in 2004. Today, the reconstruction of the
terminal is complete, releasing thousands of square feet of prime retail space for resale on the
market. The Heathrow Express trains themselves are being rebuilt to utilize the front baggage
compartments for passenger use.
What Happened at HeathrowPaddington? In cooperation with the Civil Aviation Adminis-
tration, BAA (the airport operating company) has an extremely thorough process of monitoring
and surveying the airport ground access system and its users. Using the original data obtained from
the British organizations, the researchers analyzed the change in rail mode share by the four airport
ground access market segments. The data allow the observation of the rail mode share by market
group before the discontinuation of check-in service, during the discontinuation, and after the con-
clusion of the discontinuation. The case study mimics the characteristics of an experimental design,
as the "longitudinal" data tracks the rail mode share before, during, and after a major intervention.
The Results: No Decrease in Market Share. Figure 5-3 shows there has been no visible neg-
ative impact on rail ridership on the Heathrow Express attributable to the discontinuation of the
PHOTO: M. A. Coogan.
Figure 5-2. The check-in terminal at Paddington was reduced in area in 2003
and closed in 2004.
OCR for page 111
Integrated Baggage and Ticketing Strategies 111
10.0%
Mode Share Total
9.0%
8.0%
Total Market
7.0%
6.0%
5.0%
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004
Year
SOURCE: Civil Aviation Authority Surveys, 2000-2004.
Figure 5-3. Heathrow Express mode share increases as
baggage check-in is abandoned by U.S. airlines in 2001,
British Airways in 2003, and Star Alliance in 2004.
elaborate check-in services at Paddington. In fact, during the period between 2001, when the first
airlines began to discontinue check-in services, and 2004, when the process was over, mode share
increased about 10%. This information, examined here for all market shares, is of interest in and
of itself. After the traumatic events of September 2001, the airline industry went through major
reorganization and major shifts occurred in the nature of travel patterns worldwide. With the
change in the composition of the traveling public (more reliance on discount airlines, for exam-
ple), ground access patterns might be expected to change in some parallel way. Figure 5-3 shows
that, in the case of the high-priced premium Heathrow Express, such a change simply did not
happen.
Ridership Change by Market Segment. In general, resident business travelers are assumed
to be the least likely of the four market segments to release their bags at a downtown location.
This group tends to have fewer bags in total and the least proclivity to checking them, even at the
airport. Non-business travelers, on the other hand, tend to travel with more paraphernalia and
benefit more from a service that would relieve them of the burden of getting the bags to the
airport.
However, the resident business market segment --the travelers least likely to be impacted by
the loss of baggage services--was the only segment not to experience a growth in mode share to
Heathrow Express over the 4-year period covered in this analysis. Looking at the trends in mode
shares, the UK-resident business segment mode share is about the same at the end of the period
as at the beginning. During the year that British Airways discontinued check-in services, it tended
to recapture minor losses experienced in the 2 previous years. In short, there is no indication that
loss of the major carrier's check-in function had any negative impact on the resident business
traveler's propensity to choose the premium rail service.
Turning to other market segments, the non-resident business segment experienced a visible
increase in rail mode share immediately after the departure of British Airways in 2003, with a
sharp overall increase over the 4-year period.
Non-business travelers, those with the greatest amount of baggage per party, might be seen as
vulnerable to the loss of an amenity such as full baggage check-in. But, the mode share for this
segment did not decrease. Rather, over the 4-year period, the non-resident non-business travel-
ers had a visible increase in their mode share for the Heathrow Express, including an upturn after
the 2003 departure by British Airways.
In sum, the disaggregate analysis by market segment does not reveal any strong patterns that
would invalidate the data presented in Figure 5-3, which shows that overall mode share for the
Heathrow Express did not drop in the period following the beginning of dismantling downtown
check-in, but rather grew during a particularly unstable period in the long-distance travel industry.
