Passenger numbers are down but increased demand means South Terminal reopens in two weeks
Despite continually changing travel restrictions over covid and its various variants passenger numbers at London Gatwick Airport exceed 1 million in August, September, October, and December, which greatly helped reduce the airport’s annual losses to £370.6 million, compared to a £465.5 million loss in the previous year.
Overall for 2021, the airport saw a 38.5% reduction in total annual passenger numbers which hit 6.3 million passengers for the year, compared to 10.2 million previously.
Following the UK Government’s decision to return discipline to the airport slot regulations and a series of significantly increased airline flying programmes by its airlines, Gatwick will reopen its South Terminal later this month – on Sunday 27 March - which will lead to a massive recruitment drive and a much-needed financial boost for local communities across the south-east.
Long haul traffic has also seen an increase in demand as soon as the restrictions were removed, the airport says Caribbean destinations operated by BA and TUI remained busy throughout 2021. The second half of 2021 also saw WestJet and Air Transat restart services to Canada, BA and TUI restart services to destinations in Florida, Emirates restart daily services to Dubai (this is now double daily) – with other long-haul markets also re-established to Mexico, Mauritius, Costa Rica, Aruba and Qatar.
Towards the end of 2021, Gatwick welcomes two new long-haul airlines, with JetBlue flying services to New York and Singapore Airlines budget airline Scoot flying to Bangkok. Plus, JetBlue is expected to announce another international service to London later this year.
Stewart Wingate, CEO, Gatwick Airport, said: "As it was for many airports, 2021 was a difficult year for Gatwick but, despite constantly changing travel restrictions and the emerging Omicron variant, we managed to end the year strongly and reduced our losses compared to the previous year.Today, we find ourselves in a very different position. Major announcements from our airlines about significantly increased flying schedules, and from Government on airport slot regulations and the relaxation of travel restrictions, mean we are now looking forward to a strong Summer. We’re currently focussed on reopening our South Terminal to ensure we can meet this expected strong demand and we are looking forward to welcoming back passengers in increasingly larger numbers."
Turing around the turn around....
A further enhancement to ait airport and its airline and ground handling tenants will be the new handheld digital platform that allows ground handlers to update air traffic controllers about changes to the turnaround process - in real-time, direct from the apron – optimising efficiency, reducing delays and unnecessary fuel burn on the ground.
Without the system, changes to aircraft turn events are updated through paperwork and radio communications - sometimes between several individuals at different locations - before being recorded into the system and communicated to the control tower and EUROCONTROL, the agency that manages air traffic management across Europe.
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