Strong demand and encouraging air traffic volumes accelerates Gatwick’s recovery, while economic uncertainty remains
Strong passenger demand - and encouraging air traffic volumes – following the lifting of all UK travel restrictions in March 2022 accelerated Gatwick’s recovery from the devastating impacts of the pandemic.
The increased demand caused significant operational challenges across the entire aviation sector and in response, Gatwick took early action and reduced capacity at the airport for a period of time. However, the airport now reports that it has recruited over 400 new security staff to help reduce delays. With additional resources across the Gatwick operation in place, no further moderation of flying programmes is necessary.
Indeed, Gatwick has provided staff to support other airport operators – including airline baggage handlers - as it tried to help improve performance, reduce delays and return to high standard service levels.
In its half-year results, the airport cites the reopening of the South Terminal reopened on 27 March as a major achievement, described as the equivalent of opening a medium-sized airport overnight. The terminal had been closed since the early days of the global pandemic in June 2020.
The recovery at Gatwick has seen the long-haul route network grow with 40 routes now announced, including new airlines such as Norse and Bamboo flying to New York and Hanoi respectively, British Airways starting a new service to Cape Town and JetBlue adding a new daily service to Boston, in addition to their daily flight to New York. WestJet and Air Transat currently also fly to a range of destinations across Canada, while both British Airways and TUI fly numerous other long-haul services to the US, Mexico and the Caribbean.
In the first six months of the year, 13.1 million passengers passed through the airport and total revenue was listed as £291.5 million - giving an after-tax profit of £50.6 million.
Stewart Wingate, Chief Executive Officer, Gatwick Airport said: “We still have some way to go, but strong demand has fast-tracked Gatwick’s recovery from the pandemic, particularly in the last quarter since all UK travel restrictions were removed. Air traffic volumes have reflected this strong passenger demand and have bounced back to around 75% of pre-COVID levels.The unprecedented growth in traffic led to short-term operational issues in June, however, our decisive early action to limit the airport’s capacity in the crucial school holiday period of July and August has ensured passengers have experienced reliable flight timetables over the summer months. We are now very much operating business as usual and do not see any reason to extend the capacity declaration.Despite some broad economic uncertainty, we are also looking forward to a successful second half to the year, with new, exciting airlines and routes coming online and continuous improvement in the high service standards Gatwick is known for.”
The future plans
