Hannah Godfrey

Said the following about David Stronell:

“David consistently goes above and beyond to support passengers and the airport. As Area Station Manager for Gatwick Airport and Victoria, David manages two of the busiest stations in the country, but he makes it look effortless. David's positive, proactive and can-do attitude is a breath of fresh air in an industry which is often accused of being old-fashioned, slow and out-of-date.

In particular, David is adept at recognising the challenges that Gatwick Airport faces in times of disruption and acts quickly to implement service initiatives to improve the situation for passengers. During the prolonged disruption caused by drones at Gatwick in December 2018, David quickly recognised the severity of the challenge and responded, providing invaluable support to Gatwick’s passengers and operational teams throughout the drone disruption. David encouraged GTR to rapidly implement ticket acceptance on their own services and to negotiate additional ticket acceptance across other operators to help passengers to get home or complete their journeys without additional cost and stress. This enabled the airport’s incident management teams to effectively manage the terminals and ensure welfare could reach the most vulnerable passengers by encouraging passengers to leave the airport. It also provided much-needed reassurance to passengers caught in a situation beyond their control. David also provided staff from the station to support the airport’s teams in the terminals, giving a greater physical presence to reassure passengers and share information. Since this incident, David has responded similarly to events like an ATC systems failure which disrupted flights in July 2019 and to the collapse of Thomas Cook in September 2019. On each of these occasions, David has leaped into action before the airport could request support, saving precious time and helping greatly to manage and reduce the disruption caused by these events.

David has also made a step-change in the way Gatwick Airport Station plans for disruption, building close working relationships with the airport’s strategic and operational teams. Since David’s tenure, the impact of planned engineering works has been greatly reduced, with a dramatic decline in the number of passenger complaints. This is due to David’s proactive approach to planning for engineering works, influencing GTR’s train planning teams to provide the best level of service to Gatwick possible. This is critical given the high volumes of passengers travelling through the station – over 20 million passengers and nearly 40% of Gatwick’s air passengers use Gatwick station each year. His excellent communication skills and personal approach means that he is often successful in obtaining additional resources to support his team deliver a smooth operation, even when services are reduced.

The huge success of the Three Bridges to Brighton blockade of the Brighton Main Line over February’s half-term holiday is emblematic of David’s hard work and extraordinary efforts to ensure any impact to the airport’s operations are minimal. Gatwick supported Network Rail and GTR by providing car parking space for a park-and-ride facility for commuters trying to get to London to allow them to get the train from Gatwick. Given half-term is a particularly busy time of year for Gatwick, there were real concerns that the park-and-ride facility to support commuters could negatively impact traffic around the airport or the long-stay car parks. However, David project, ensuring that all communications were clear and accurate and fixing some minor teething issues quickly. As a result, we received really positive feedback from users of the facility and no passenger complaints from the whole project.

On the station, David has spearheaded a number of service and facility improvements, including the replacement of all the platform information screens with new, highly specified screens. The new screens give passengers more information, supporting them in their journey and help to encourage passengers to use the full length of the platform, enabling faster loading onto trains and ensuring operational stability and punctuality. He has also overseen an upgrade of the area for passengers with reduced mobility.

Most importantly, David has empowered his staff to take more responsibility and get involved in initiatives to challenge and develop them. In particular, David has encouraged one member of staff to work with Gatwick Airport on accessibility initiatives, launching Gatwick’s first ‘Try a Train’ day in 2018 and involvement with the airport’s own Accessibility days to familiarise families with children with physical and hidden disabilities with the airport process. With David’s encouragement the station team have also adopted Crawley Autism Society as their chosen charity, with considerable work done and money raised for this worthwhile cause. In part due to these efforts, Gatwick won the award for Excellence in Transport Accessibility at the London Transport Awards earlier this year.

David does everything with a smile on his face and a positive attitude. Nothing is too small for him to deal with personally and no challenge too big – he makes everything seem possible! He’s an absolute pleasure to work with and should be hugely proud of all he’s achieved in his role.“