Gatwick Airport: Can Crawley turn away from aviation and go green?

The economic impact of the pandemic has hit few places as hard as Crawley, which relies on nearby Gatwick Airport for thousands of jobs.

But the West Sussex town is now plotting a route to recovery which it hopes will see it become less reliant on aviation and a haven for sustainable business.

Some of Crawley's 110,000 residents believe there will be a turbulent future ahead, as the plan does nothing to address the immediate need for 'quality jobs' in the local area.

But others have already began to turn their fortunes around on the back of what the town hopes are the first shoots of "green growth".

Werner Oeder lost his job at a utility company two days after Boris Johnson ordered the nation to stay at home in March 2020. At the age of 50, he was forced to receive unemployment benefit for the first time in his life.

"It was stressful," he said. "Everything had been shut down and I didn't think there would be companies out there hiring."

After a "tough" four months applying for hundreds of jobs in everything from project management to delivery driving, he was hired by Naked Energy, a solar heating and electricity start-up based at an industrial estate in Crawley.

"I was really lucky," he said. "I wasn't necessarily qualified for it, but they saw the potential in me."

Werner Oeder was thankful his new employers saw his "potential"

The lifeline for Mr Oeder came as Crawley faced an uncertain future.

When the pandemic decimated international travel, airlines began to pull out of Gatwick Airport, which had employed 6,000 people from the town, and supported many more jobs in industries like hospitality and catering.

British Airways suspended all flights on 31 March 2020. Virgin Atlantic quit in May and has no plans to return this year. The company sold its vast training base near the airport for £30m in August.

In January, budget airline Norwegian axed its long-haul network, leading to the loss of 1,100 jobs based at Gatwick. BA resumed some long-haul flights from Gatwick in June, but it is unclear if and when short-haul will return.

Gatwick does not expect passenger numbers to return to "pre-pandemic levels until 2025", but said airlines were keen to resume flights, with some due to begin operating from the airport for the first time.

In Crawley, the economic impacts of the pandemic are stark.

More than 12,000 people were on furlough in January, or 20% of the workforce - one of the highest proportions in the country. In February, more than 6,400 people were claiming unemployment benefits, an increase of 230% in a year.

But the answer is not simply to get planes in the sky again, Crawley council leader Peter Lamb says.

"Even if it gets back to the same passenger numbers or higher, the total level of the workforce will be lower," he said.

Falling demand for workers due to automation at the airport was already a "huge risk" before the pandemic, he added.

But Crawley's solution for long term growth, according to the council's plans for recovery, will see it undergo a "green transformation" and become a hub for "digital innovation" and green technology companies.

British Airways suspended flights at Gatwick on 31 March 2020

Earlier this month, the government gave the town £21.1m to help achieve what it called "plans to become a modern, vibrant and healthy digital town with a thriving green economy".

The council aims to offer training in areas like insulation and solar power installation, while driving demand by "retrofitting" council homes and ensuring new developments are sustainable.

The town would also receive support from Gatwick, which said it would "continue to play a significant role supporting Crawley's economy and local jobs".

Meanwhile, an innovation centre, utilising the knowledge of companies already in the town, like French defence firm Thales, is expected to build on the "advanced engineering and digital base".

Naked Energy chief executive Christophe Williams says the company chose Crawley partly because of the number of specialist engineers in the area, many of whom had worked for US firm Applied Materials before it pulled out of nearby Horsham in 2007.

The strong transport links, affordable rents and proximity to London had made it a "very good, cost-effective engineering and innovation hub for us," he said.

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Mr Lamb said Gatwick - and as a result, Crawley - had been "disproportionately harder hit" by the pandemic than other airports partly because Virgin and BA had retreated to Heathrow.

The UK's busiest airport, in Hounslow, west London, is less reliant on holidaymakers, with a higher proportion of business and transfer flights.

Amar Limbachia said Crawley had become a "black hole" for jobs

Amar Limbachia agrees with Crawley council that the town's salvation can not come only from aviation - but he sees a difficult road ahead.

The 33-year-old, who lost his job as an airport security guard in October, began studying at the Open University several years ago after deciding he had little chance of career progression.

But Crawley had become a "black hole" for jobs and many people were struggling to make ends meet, he said.

"The only work available is warehouse and delivery drivers," he said.

"On my street there's quite a few people who rent out houses to air hostesses and so forth, a lot of them are empty right now," he added.

As he completes his degree course, he has been applying for any job he can find - but has had no positive news.

Both the government and the council needed to "pull their socks up" and do more to help those out of work, he said.

"It does feel like they are saying things, but there's not much being done."

Marcelo Dotta, pictured in Peru, longs to return to the skies as cabin crew

Former cabin crew Marcelo Dotta, who was made redundant in August, thinks talk of transferable skills and re-training is missing one key thing.

"I don't want to find a job that is just a job, I love what I do," he said.

"I didn't build my career to do something else," the 50-year-old said. "I didn't train every single year just to be on the aircraft to just say: 'Oh, it's chicken or beef.'"

Marcelo Dotta wearing the uniform of his first airline, in the 1990s

He believes that Gatwick Airport will rebound and is confident he will one day return to the job that has been his passion for nearly 30 years.

"Every flight is a new adventure," he said. "As soon as I put my uniform on [for the first time] I said, oh my god, that's what I want to do for the rest of my life. It's like putting on a different character, it's like an actor."

Like many people in Crawley who are growing anxious over stalling career dreams, he has found work in the warehouse of one of the logistics companies that have boomed during lockdown.

"I'm doing part-time for Amazon and I absolutely hate it", he said. "But I've got to pay my rent. I've got to pay my bills."

The online retail giant recently moved into Manor Royal, the vast business park next to the airport where about 30,000 people work.

Virgin Atlantic sold its training base in Manor Royal in August

The park's executive director Steve Sawyer said the site is home to innovative manufacturing companies involved in medical technology, pharmaceuticals and hydrogen fuel cells.

Plans to launch a renewable energy co-operative using the park's 9m square feet of roof space to generate solar power would "drive demand for green jobs," he said.

"What we are trying to do here is not to say we don't want the airport, it's about what can we build alongside aviation to make Manor Royal a little less vulnerable to these shocks in the future.

"Gatwick will always be a big part of Crawley, no question about it."

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