Thank you for mentioning our Twitter initiative. If I may, I’d like to respond to three points that you’ve made:

First of all you say that we don’t plan to construct a giant Twitter wall.

We don’t, and that’s not because we think there will be a “riot” or because we think we have anything to hide – far from it.

Instead, there are a lot of families among the 33+ million passengers using us every year, and we can’t have a few people posting inappropriate comments simply with the aim of seeing them appear on screen.

Secondly, you say that Twitter isn’t the only way to complain. It’s not and I think the point here is that our social media programme is an extension of our customer services strategy. It certainly shouldn’t be seen in isolation.

However I do think that the instantaneous nature of Twitter means that a lot of problems or concerns will be brought to our attention quickly. Problems and concerns that we will ideally be able to do something about.

Finally we’re aware that some passengers historically haven’t had the best experience with us, which is why we’re keen to hear ways in which we can make it better.

Only last month our new owners announced a £1 billion airport upgrade programme and we are confident that everyone using Gatwick in future will be pleased with the end result.

Regards, Samantha Holgate (head of airport communications)

And using twitter to provide feedback has a much lower barrier to entry so they are likely to receive:
- a higher volume of messages
- a full spectrum from compliment to complaint. The harder it is to provide feedback the more likely it is the messages skew towards complaints.