London Gatwick Airport (Oxford Dictionaries (retrieved 5 September 2012) ) is one of several international airports serving Greater London and southern England. It is located in Crawley, in West Sussex, south of Central London, England. In 2024, Gatwick was the second-busiest airport by total passenger traffic in the UK, after Heathrow, and was the tenth-busiest in Europe by total passenger traffic. It covers a total area of .
Gatwick opened as an aerodrome in the late 1920s; it has been in use for commercial flights since 1933. The airport has two terminals: the North Terminal and the South Terminal, which cover areas of and respectively. It operates as a single-runway airport, using a main runway with a length of . A secondary runway is available but, due to its proximity to the main runway, can only be used if the main runway is not in use. In 2018, 46.1million passengers passed through the airport, a 1.1% increase compared with 2017. Gatwick is the secondary London hub for British Airways and the largest operating base for low-cost carrier easyJet.
History
Early years
The land on which Gatwick Airport stands was first developed as an aerodrome in the late 1920s. The Air Ministry approved commercial flights from the site in 1933 and the first terminal, The Beehive, was built in 1935. Scheduled air services from the new terminal began the following year. During the Second World War, the airport was taken over by the military and was known as RAF Gatwick. After the war, the airport returned to its civilian capacity. The airport proper was built in the mid-1950s opening in 1956. The airport buildings were designed by Yorke Rosenberg Mardall between 1955 and 1988.
In the 1960s, British United Airways (BUA) and Dan-Air were two of the largest British independent airlines at Gatwick, with the former establishing itself as the dominant scheduled operator at the airport as well as providing a significant number of the airport's non-scheduled services and the latter becoming its leading provider of inclusive tour charter services.Cooper, B., Got your number, Golden Gatwick, Skyport, Gatwick edition, Hounslow, 6 June 2008, p. 12 Further rapid growth of charter flights at Gatwick was encouraged by the Ministry of Aviation, which instructed airlines to move regular charter flights from Heathrow. Following the takeover of BUA by Caledonian Airways at the beginning of the following decade, the resulting airline, British Caledonian (BCal), became Gatwick's dominant scheduled airline during the 1970s. While continuing to dominate scheduled operations at Gatwick for most of the 1980s, BCal was also one of the airport's major charter airlines until the end of the 1970s (together with Dan-Air, Laker Airways and British Airtours).Iyengar, K., Bermuda Bloomers, Golden Gatwick, Skyport, Gatwick edition, Hounslow, 8 February 2008, p. 18
As a result of conditions imposed by Britain's Monopolies and Mergers Commission on the takeover of BCal by the then newly privatised British Airways (BA) at the end of the 1980s, Dan-Air and Air Europe assumed BCal's former role as Gatwick's dominant scheduled short-haul operator while BA continued in BCal's erstwhile role as the airport's most important scheduled long-haul operator. Following the demise of Air Europe and Dan-Air (both of which had continued to provide a significant number of charter flights in addition to a growing number of scheduled short-haul flights at Gatwick) in the early 1990s, BA (having purchased Dan-Air) began building up Gatwick into a secondary hub (complementing its main hub at Heathrow). These moves resulted in BA becoming Gatwick's dominant airline by the turn of the millennium.Iyengar, K., The only way is up, Golden Gatwick, Skyport, Gatwick edition, Hounslow, 11 April 2008, p. 16Iyengar, K., Heading North, Golden Gatwick, Skyport, Gatwick edition, Hounslow, 9 May 2008, p. 16 BA's subsequent decision to de-hub Gatwick provided the space for easyJet to establish its biggest base at the airport and become its dominant airline.
Transatlantic flights to the United States From 1978 to 2008, many flights to and from the United States used Gatwick because of restrictions on the use of Heathrow implemented in the Bermuda II Agreement between the UK and the US. The EU–US Open Skies Agreement, which became effective on 30 March 2008, led several airlines to downsize their transatlantic operations at Gatwick in favour of Heathrow. Continental Airlines was the second transatlantic carrier (after American Airlines) to leave Gatwick after it decided to transfer the seasonal Cleveland service to Heathrow on 3 May 2009.
US Airways, Gatwick's last remaining US carrier, ended its service between Gatwick and Charlotte on 30 March 2013. This left Gatwick without a scheduled US airline for the first time in 35 years. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Delta Air Lines announced its intent to launch service between Gatwick and Boston in the summer of 2020, which would have made it the first US airline to service Gatwick since the withdrawal of the US Airways service in 2013, but the massive global travel downturn placed these plans on indefinite hold. In 2021, JetBlue became the first US airline to serve Gatwick since 2013, with services to New York–JFK and Boston.
Development since the 2000s On 17 September 2008, BAA announced it would sell Gatwick after the Competition Commission published a report about BAA's market dominance in London and the South East. On 21 October 2009, it was announced that an agreement had been reached to sell Gatwick to a consortium led by Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), which subsequently also bought Edinburgh Airport in 2012, for £1.51billion. The sale was completed on 3 December. In February 2010, GIP sold minority stakes in the airport of 12% and 15% to the South Korean National Pension Service and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) for £100million and £125million, respectively. The sales were part of GIP's strategy to syndicate the equity portion of the original acquisition by issuing bonds to refinance bank debt. Although this entails bringing additional investors into the airport, GIP aims to retain management control.
The Californian state pension fund CalPERS acquired a 12.7% stake in Gatwick Airport for about US$155million (£104.8million) in June 2010. On 21 December 2010, the A$69billion (£44billion) Future Fund, a sovereign wealth fund established by the Australian government in 2006, agreed to purchase a 17.2% stake in Gatwick Airport from GIP for £145million. This transaction completed GIP's syndication process for the airport, reducing its stake to 42% (although the firm's extra voting rights meant it still controlled the airport's board).In August 2020, the airport announced plans to cut over a quarter of its employees as a result of a planned company restructuring caused by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The planned cuts will bring the total workforce of the airport to 1,900; before the start of the pandemic it was 3,300, however, an additional 785 jobs were cut earlier in 2020. In August 2021, it was reported that Gatwick's operators were in talks with lenders following posting first-half-year net losses of £ 245m.
Corporate affairs Ownership The former BAA Limited (now Heathrow Airport Holdings) and its predecessors, BAA plc and the British Airports Authority, owned and operated Gatwick from 1 April 1966 to 2 December 2009. The airport is owned and operated by Gatwick Airport Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ivy Holdco Limited, owned by Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), itself owned by BlackRock. In December 2018, Vinci announced that it would acquire a 50.01% majority stake for £2.9bn, with a GIP-managed consortium of investors (Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Australia's sovereign wealth fund and two public pension funds in California and South Korea) owning the remaining 49.9%. The sale was completed by the middle of 2019.
Leadership In September 2023, Baroness Ford was announced as the new chair of Gatwick Airport.
Operations Facilities
On 31 May 2008, Virgin Holidays opened the V Room, Gatwick's first lounge dedicated to their long-haul leisure travellers. On 25 January 2017, the lounge moved to the North Terminal together with the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse as part of the airline moves that saw British Airways and Virgin Atlantic exchange their previous terminal locations and easyJet consolidated in the North Terminal. On 9 April 2009, an independent pay-for-access lounge opened in the South Terminal. Gatwick also has a conference and business centre, and several on- and off-site hotels ranging in class from executive to economy.
The airport has Anglican, Catholic and Free Church chaplains, and there are multi-faith prayer and counselling rooms in each terminal. A daily service is led by one of the chaplains."Chaplain's Corner – with Gatwick chaplain Sister Jo Threlfall", Skyport, Gatwick edition, Hammersmith, 29 April 2011, p. 9
The Civil Aviation Authority Safety Regulation Group is in Aviation House."Bus Services to CAA Safety Regulation Group, Aviation House ". Civil Aviation Authority. Retrieved 9 September 2010. "Aviation House South Area Gatwick Airport RH6 0YR" WesternGeco, a geophysical services company, has its head office and Europe–Africa–Russia offices in Schlumberger House, a building on the airport groundsEade, Christine (8 June 2007). "The market in minutes – Sussex". . Property Week. Retrieved 12 February 2011. near the South Terminal. The company had a 15-year lease on the building, scheduled to expire in June 2008. In 2007, WesternGeco reached an agreement with its landlord, BAA Lynton, extending its lease to 2016 at an initial rent of £2.1million. Fastjet has its registered and head offices at Suite 2C in First Point at the airport."Investor Contacts". (Archive) Fastjet. Retrieved 7 May 2013. "Registered Office and Head Office fastjet Plc Suite 2C First Point Buckingham Gate Gatwick Airport RH6 0NT"
Before the sale, BAA planned an £874million investment at Gatwick over five years, including increased capacity for both terminals, improvements to the transport interchange and a new baggage system for the South Terminal. Passengers passing through the airport are informed about the redevelopment programme with large mobile barcodes on top of construction hoardings. Scanning these transfers information on the construction to the user's smartphone.
In the summer of 2013, Gatwick introduced Gatwick Connect, a free flight connection service to assist passengers changing flights at Gatwick whose airlines do not provide a full flight connection service. On 15 September 2015, the service was rebranded as GatwickConnects. It is available to passengers connecting on several major airlines.
Flight movements Gatwick operates as a single-runway airport although it has two runways; the northern runway (08L/26R) can only be used when the main runway (08R/26L) is out of use. The UK Integrated Aeronautical Information Package gives the Takeoff Run Available (TORA) of its main runway (08R/26L) as 3,255 m when aircraft take off in a westerly direction (26) and 3,159 m when takeoffs occur in an easterly direction (08). The documentation lists the respective TORA for the northern runway (08L/26R) as 2,565 m in both directions. Nearly three-quarters of takeoffs are towards the west (74% over 12 months). Both runways are wide; they are apart,"Gatwick Runway Options Consultation" (Section 2: Our runway options / 2.1 Features common to all options – The length of the runway), Gatwick Airport Limited, April 2014, p. 16 which is insufficient for the simultaneous use of both runways. During normal operations the northern runway is used as a taxiway, consistent with its original construction (although it was gradually widened).