You say it yourself, times have changed.
In the interests of balance though, how many long-haul routes, weekly departures and even based aircraft does LGW have these days compared to then? A lot of those airlines back in 1989, even through the 90s, flew in perhaps once or twice a week with few routes. Westjet for example must outdo Canadian. Air Transat are bigger than I recall back then. Thomson and Thomas Cook fly to all sorts of places that were off the radar until more recently. Norwegian must be bigger to the USA than TWA, US Air and Northwest combined.