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Good evening

It’s a real privilege for me to receive this honour this evening.

While I fully appreciate that it is a personal honour, I’m very much aware that it more reflects the role Heathrow plays rather than my own contribution.

Nevertheless, I’m very proud to receive this fellowship with my amazing wife and children here to celebrate with me.
When you receive recognition for professional achievements, I think it’s important to acknowledge that many of us can only succeed at work because of the support we get at home.
I am certainly one of those so I’m delighted that my family are here tonight so I can thank them for the support they have always given to me.

I’m very proud to have worked at Heathrow for the past 14 years.
It’s a very special place.
Far more than an airport.

It’s the biggest single site of employment in the UK – 80,000 people with one in four local families having a member who works alongside me.
The world’s best connected airport – 239 destinations in 89 countries.
Forecasting our busiest ever year this year with 81.4m passengers. Three Wembley fulls of passengers every single day.

But Heathrow’s size and scale also means we have other, less positive impacts.

Heathrow is the second biggest site of carbon emissions in the UK.
More people are impacted by noise at Heathrow than all other UK airports combined.

It’s important that we don’t brush the inconvenient truths under the carpet.
Heathrow, like aviation more generally, is getting cleaner and greener but key part of my role is to continue the acceleration of aviation’s decarbonisation and reduction of aviation’s other environmental impacts.

Heathrow is also, by value, by far the most important port in the UK.
Air cargo really matters to the UK economy.
Although air cargo represents just 1% of total UK trade tonnage, its value to the UK economy is massive – accounting for 40% of the total value of UK trade.

Weight wise, there are some impressive stats at Heathrow.

We processed nearly one and a half million tonnes of cargo in 2023.
In the few weeks running up to Christmas last year, 133,277 tonnes of cargo flew in and out of the airport - that’s a lot of cranberries, crackers and Christmas presents.

But it’s the value rather than weight of these imports and exports where Heathrow key role in the logistics and courier sector really comes into its own.
For high value, low weight and urgent goods, Heathrow is THE place.

UK exports to non-EU nations via Heathrow were worth over £100 billion last year.
Heathrow accounts for
around two-thirds of UK exports to China,
over half of the country’s exports to India and
a third of its exports to the USA.

We play a vital role in supporting the UK’s future export growth potential.
Our top exported products: books, salmon and medicine
Our top imported products: beans, mangoes and flowers

We are delighted to offer the logistics sector specialist facilities for cargo at Heathrow that help ensure many of you are efficient, effective and market-leading in getting goods to and from your customers.
Heathrow has dedicated high value, express processing and pharmaceutical storage capability.
We have four Border Control Posts dedicated to the safe and secure import of plants, food and live animals.
And we are home to the only live animal Border Control Post capable of accepting the full range of animals in the UK.

Turning specifically to the role Heathrow plays in working alongside courier services, we have over 50 forwarders within three miles of the airport, contributing to our success.
Thank you for the business you put through the airport - we’re very grateful for it.

There’s been a lot of talk about the return of passengers to Heathrow post-Covid.
Not so much that cargo kept the airport going during those challenging times.

This sector didn’t desert us during the pandemic and the fact there was an airport for passengers to return to owes a lot to the cargo that kept planes flying around the world even when passengers couldn’t.

So thank you.

A final unique feature of Heathrow that some of you are involved with is Courier Facilities Ltd.
CFL is a not-for-profit courier operator that works with all handlers at Heathrow to ensure fast parcels flow swiftly through the airport.
This is a unique offering amongst airports and is set up this way so that they can work across all handlers and not raise competition concerns.
The company is owned by logistics and airlines businesses, including Fed Ex, DHL, UPS and Virgin, and operates the UK’s only dedicated multi-user express handling facility.
CFL has dedicated collection and drop-off bays that allow customers to collect their shipments from only 60 minutes after a flight arrives, and drop off from 90 minutes before flight departures.
CFL was formed forty years ago when the growth of the on-board courier product, which allowed unaccompanied packages to travel in the hold as unaccompanied luggage, led to huge pressure on the passenger terminals.
As a result, Heathrow looked to move the courier product out of passenger terminals and the industry created CFL to manage this.
95% of cargo at Heathrow still goes in the bellyhold of passenger aircraft – but it no longer has to share terminal space with passengers.

As the process by which the parcels you transport go through the airport has changed, so has the importance of the role this sector plays to people, to business and to the country.
This sector is more important than it’s ever been and as a consequence, this Institute is more important than it’s ever been.
That’s why it’s such an honour to receive this award and to be here with you all this evening.

Thank you.