many times on here and on other forums on other sites you continously run down Gatwick
No sir I do not and have never done so, you are clearly not reading what I am saying.
I love flying from Gatwick. Just flown BE LGW-NCL, DL LGW-ATL and doing LGW-AMS and LGW-INV in the next month so whatever I may be, I am not anti Gatters. I love the airport and am pleased at what GIP have done.
However talk of "getting behind" Gatwick as if it were some League One football team is naive nonsense. There are real and understandable reasons why long haul at LGW struggles. All the way from BUA, BCAL and Virgin's fight to
get out of LGW into LHR. You must have noticed that all they left behind was leisure?
Anyone who wants to see BA short haul expand from LGW is in cloud cuckoo land. I have been flying with BA through LGW for 18 years and watched them closely but I cannot see how they are going to turn LGW short haul into a profitable operation, and as a stand alone business unit that's a death sentence, clearly signposted by the continued postponment of the B734 fleet replacement. In business the death of a thousand cuts can be a better scenario than the axe falling as it's done organically and over the last seven years BA short haul LGW has contracted fleet size year on year.
The same goes for anyone who thinks Air China or Korean are starting at Gatwick by choice and those who cheers Hong Kong Air as the next big thing. Gatwick is what it is, the primary leisure gateway for London. It has never managed to beat LHR on a single long haul route and today there are only three long haul routes from both LHR and LGW. ( God I hope that's right, Friday and post pub!), Seoul, Beijing and Hong Kong, with Seoul and Beijing a LHR move when slots become free. Given the focus on alliances and connectivity and the added expense of a split operation over two London airports with only two daily flights, I just think some fanboys need to get real. As for LH, well they're downsizing already, and given they alrerady operate LHR and LCY-FRA I give LGW-FRA another year. It was a spoiler to keep EZY out of FRA and I don't see it lasting, indeed the aircraft has already been downsized.
That's not anti Gatwick, it's a balanced assesment of commercial reality and of what the market will support, it does not mean I hate Gatwick for goodness sake, it just means it's never been able to, and still shows no sign of, competing with LHR in certain markets.