Gatwick-2

[davidjohnson6]

I've had a look through the ACL report for winter 2020/2021, compared the slots granted (not just requested) and looked for route changes that have not been already announced. I must emphasise that this is based on slots granted - airlines can and sometimes do decline to take up routes, so this is only a "what might happen", not a "what will happen". In a normal year, many of these routes would have been announced by now; I'm guessing a sizeable number of them simply won't happen:

Air Arabia Maroc:
Fez cancelled

Air Nostrum:
New 2x weekly CRJ1000 to Vigo

Alitalia:
7x daily A319 to combination of Rome FCO and Milan LIN were requested, but ACL granted slots for just 5 flights per week ie just 10% of slot request was granted

China Southern:
New route 5x weekly A330/B787 to Guangzhou

Corendon:
New route 2x weekly B738 to Antalya

Easyjet:
Many new routes or beach routes going from summer-only to year round, but I'm dubious on this. Only 2 additional slot pairs allocated per week compared to previous winter
La Palma cancelled

Enter Air:
New route 1x weekly B738 to Banjul

Iraqi Airways:
Baghdad, Erbil(?) and Sulaimaniyah cancelled

Nouvelair:
New route 2x weekly A320 to Enfiddha

Nordica / Regional Jet:
New route 5x weekly to Tallinn

Ryanair:
New routes (2x weekly extra slot pairs) to Malaga and Sofia

SAS Scandinavian:
New route 3x weekly A320 to Copenhagen

Spice Jet:
New routes 9x weekly 267-seat aircraft to combination of Delhi and Mumbai

Stobart Air:
New route 1x weekly E190 to Belfast City

Swiss:
New route 1x weekly A220 to Sion

Titan:
Lyon replaced by Toulouse

Transavia France:
New route 1x weekly B738 to Paris Orly.
4x weekly slots were requested so this route probably won't happen

TUI:
Mauritius and Pattaya cancelled

Vistara:
New route 1x daily B789 to Delhi

Widerĝe:
New route 6x weekly E190-E2 to Bergen. Widerĝe have also been granted slots for 13x weekly E190-E2 on London City - Bergen

Wizzair:
8 new A321/A321neo slot pairs per day to a combination of:
Alghero, Bratislava, Burgas, Castellón, Constanța, Kaunas, Krakow, Košice, Kutaisi, Lisbon, Lviv, Malta, Niš, Odessa, Olsztyn, Palanga, Poprad, Suceava, Sofia, Satu Mare, Szczecin, Târgu Mureș, Tel Aviv, Varna, Vienna, Warsaw and Yerevan
Most routes are (or recently were) already flown from Luton - but Alghero, Malta, Niš, Odessa and Yerevan look to be new
József Váradi, CEO of Wizz has spoken recently about making Gatwick a major base in London. However only 40% of slots requested were actually granted

Wizzair UK:
13x weekly A321neo to a combination of Larnaca + Suceava

It looks as if Wizz+WizzUK have enough slots for the equivalent of basing 4 or 5 A321s at Gatwick

https://www.acl-uk.org/wp-content/up...rd.-Report.pdf

[mariofly12]

Originally Posted by davidjohnson6

I've had a look through the ACL report for winter 2020/2021, compared the slots granted (not just requested) and looked for route changes that have not been already announced. I must emphasise that this is based on slots granted - airlines can and sometimes do decline to take up routes, so this is only a "what might happen", not a "what wll happen". In a normal year, many of these routes would have been announced by now; I'm guessing a sizeable number of them simply won't happen:

Air Arabia Maroc:
Fez cancelled

Air Nostrum:
New 2x weekly to Vigo

Alitalia:
New routes to Rome FCO and Milan LIN, but few slots allocated so dubious if this will go ahead

China Southern:
New route to Guangzhou

Corendon:
New route 2x weekly to Antalya

Easyjet:
Many new routes or beach routes going from summer-only to year round, but I'm dubious on this. Only 2 additional slot pairs allocated per week compared to previous winter
La Palma cancelled

Enter Air:
New route 1x weekly to Banjul

Iraqi Airways:
Baghdad, Erbil(?) and Salaimaniyah cancelled

Nouvelair:
New route 2x weekly to Enfiddha

Nordica / Regional Jet:
New route 5x weekly to Tallinn

Ryanair:
New routes (2x weekly extra slot pairs) to Malaga and Sofia

SAS Scandinavian:
New route 3x weekly to Copenhagen

Spice Jet:
New routes 9x weekly to combination of Delhi and Mumbai

Stobart Air:
New route 1x daily to Belfast City

Swiss:
New route 1x weekly to Sion

Titan:
Lyon replaced by Toulouse

Transavia France:
New route 1x daily to Paris Orly

TUI:
Mauritius and Pattaya cancelled

Vistara:
New route 1x daily to Delhi

Wideroe:
New route 6x weekly to Bergen. Wideroe have also been granted slots for 13x weekly on London City - Bergen

Wizzair:
112 new slot pairs per week to a combination of:
Alghero, Bourgas, Bratislava, Castellon, Constanta, Krakow, Kosice, Kaunas, Kutaisi, Lisbon, Lviv, Malta, Nis, Odessa, Olsztyn, Palanga, Poprad, Suceava, Sofia, Satu Mare, Szczecin, Targu Mures, Tel Aviv, Varna, Vienna, Warsaw, Yerevan
Most routes are (or recently were) already flown from Luton - but Alghero, Nis, Odessa and Yerevan look to be new
Jozsef Varadi, CEO of Wizz has spoken recently about making Gatwick a major base in London. However only 40% of slots requested were actually granted

Wizzair UK:
25 slot pairs per week to Larnaca + Suceava

https://www.acl-uk.org/wp-content/up...rd.-Report.pdf

1.Help me on this one..25 slot pairs per week to LCA means double daily?
2. Sofia is getting crowded and i dont know who's gonna make it..We've got from LGW Easy, FR and Wizz plus all the LHR,STN.LTN flights
3. Spicejet? They don't have widebodies in their fleet, how are they gonna make it to LGW?
4. Is Stobart Air really flying? And under what company name/code will the flights be? With E-190s?
5.Wideroe has also applied for STN slots..So they will be flying from all 3 airports to BGO? Overestimating demand at Covid-19 era?
6. Obviously, if Wizzair start all these new routes they will base a/c at LGW..Do we know how many? Shouldn't they be registered as Wizz UK? And will LGW routes to eastern european cities be served from the bases over there?

[davidjohnson6]

ACL granted Wizz UK 571 slots over the Winter 2020/2021 period. Allowing for 22 weeks, this gives 25.95 slots per week, or between 12 and 13 round trips per week, which Wizz UK can choose to split between Larnaca and Suceava as they like. Perhaps I should have guessed that the actual flight plan probably assumed a departure at 23:55 on Sat 24 Oct 2020, or an arrival at 00:05 on Sunday 28 March 2021

[True Blue]

Corendon Airlines seem to be starting new routes in June 21 to both Rhodes, 1 weekly and Heraklion, 2 weekly. Both routes on sale on their site.

[mhk77]

Originally Posted by davidjohnson6

I've had a look through the ACL report for winter 2020/2021, compared the slots granted (not just requested) and looked for route changes that have not been already announced. I must emphasise that this is based on slots granted - airlines can and sometimes do decline to take up routes, so this is only a "what might happen", not a "what will happen". In a normal year, many of these routes would have been announced by now; I'm guessing a sizeable number of them simply won't happen:

Air Arabia Maroc:
Fez cancelled

Air Nostrum:
New 2x weekly CRJ1000 to Vigo

Alitalia:
New 7x daily A319 routes to combination of Rome FCO and Milan LIN

China Southern:
New route 5x weekly A330/B787 to Guangzhou

Corendon:
New route 2x weekly B738 to Antalya

Easyjet:
Many new routes or beach routes going from summer-only to year round, but I'm dubious on this. Only 2 additional slot pairs allocated per week compared to previous winter
La Palma cancelled

Enter Air:
New route 1x weekly B738 to Banjul

Iraqi Airways:
Baghdad, Erbil(?) and Sulaimaniyah cancelled

Nouvelair:
New route 2x weekly A320 to Enfiddha

Nordica / Regional Jet:
New route 5x weekly to Tallinn

Ryanair:
New routes (2x weekly extra slot pairs) to Malaga and Sofia

SAS Scandinavian:
New route 3x weekly A320 to Copenhagen

Spice Jet:
New routes 9x weekly 267-seat aircraft to combination of Delhi and Mumbai

Stobart Air:
New route 1x weekly E190 to Belfast City

Swiss:
New route 1x weekly A220 to Sion

Titan:
Lyon replaced by Toulouse

Transavia France:
New route 1x weekly B738 to Paris Orly.
4x weekly slots were requested so this route probably won't happen

TUI:
Mauritius and Pattaya cancelled

Vistara:
New route 1x daily B789 to Delhi

Widerĝe:
New route 6x weekly E190-E2 to Bergen. Widerĝe have also been granted slots for 13x weekly E190-E2 on London City - Bergen

Wizzair:
8 new A321/A321neo slot pairs per day to a combination of:
Alghero, Bratislava, Burgas, Castellón, Constanța, Kaunas, Krakow, Košice, Kutaisi, Lisbon, Lviv, Malta, Niš, Odessa, Olsztyn, Palanga, Poprad, Suceava, Sofia, Satu Mare, Szczecin, Târgu Mureș, Tel Aviv, Varna, Vienna, Warsaw and Yerevan
Most routes are (or recently were) already flown from Luton - but Alghero, Malta, Niš, Odessa and Yerevan look to be new
József Váradi, CEO of Wizz has spoken recently about making Gatwick a major base in London. However only 40% of slots requested were actually granted

Wizzair UK:
13x weekly A321neo to a combination of Larnaca + Suceava

It looks as if Wizz+WizzUK have enough slots at Gatwick for the equivalent of 5 A321s

https://www.acl-uk.org/wp-content/up...rd.-Report.pdf

How likely is any of that to happen? Would love it if Wizzair started to that extent, but on the same acl-uk report they mention BA Long Haul services and a number of Virgin flights. Both of whom have said they are withdrawing long-haul ops from Gatwick. I understand the nuance of slot protection hence the mention of BA and Virgin, but my main interest is the likelihood of Wizzair expanding so much at Gatwick which would be great, especially if all those flights do start.

I also really hope that Gatwick will try their hardest to entice other airlines to the airport now. Norwegian will leave a big hole. Why not try and tempt some of the smaller airlines that operate into Heathrow? It must be significantly cheaper to operate out of Gatwick and the connections into Central London are perfectly good enough once you walk out of the airport.

[spannersatcx]

Originally Posted by JW95

Sad, but true Would be a sad loss for LGW for CI to withdraw permanently- I'm just hoping that CX doesn't follow suit, as they seem to have been doing well at LGW since launch 3 years ago, and they seem to have been adopting the EK-style approach, so operating at LHR and LGW simultaneously seems to have been working for them thus far.

LGW was one of the worst performers for CX in Europe by all accounts. Doubt it will return until after LHR is back up and running 5x daily first.

[True Blue]

We always hear how poor long haul routes perform out of Lgw. Yet for decades American carriers operated, in some cases, multiple frequencies per day to some destinations. Leave aside this argument that they had to use Lgw, which was the case, if those routes had been loss making, why would they have done that? Emirates runs 3 A380 flights a day out of Lgw and has done for years, if the economics were that poor, why would they continue with these flights? Vietnam Airlines moved from Lgw to Lhr. Before this crisis, they were running the same number of flights as they had been at Lgw. What did they gain? Who would have used them because they are now operating from Lhr but would not have used them from Lgw? Is a better reason for this Lgw vs Lhr story that for those who operate from both, Lgw can take pax from Lhr and in turn weaken Lhr? With some airlines there seems to be an obsession to use Lhr for bragging purposes as opposed to sound financial reasons to do so.

Both BA and Virgin have stated they are/may leave Lgw completely. The role of the current management is to manage through this current crisis. But good management also has to be involved in long term strategy thinking. We are told by various that pax numbers will take between 1-3 years to recover to pre crisis levels. So BA and Virgin leave Lgw and in 3 years time we are back to 2019 levels of traffic. Both these airlines are at that point constrained at LHR due lack of slots. But he, there are at that stage no Lgw slots either. Wizz have them! What do they do then? Start from Southend?

It will be interesting to see if they really carry through with the threat to abandon Lgw, especially BA with Wizz waiting patiently.

[Skipness One Foxtrot]

Originally Posted by True Blue

We always hear how poor long haul routes perform out of Lgw. Yet for decades American carriers operated, in some cases, multiple frequencies per day to some destinations. Leave aside this argument that they had to use Lgw, which was the case, if those routes had been loss making, why would they have done that? Emirates runs 3 A380 flights a day out of Lgw and has done for years, if the economics were that poor, why would they continue with these flights? Vietnam Airlines moved from Lgw to Lhr. Before this crisis, they were running the same number of flights as they had been at Lgw. What did they gain? Who would have used them because they are now operating from Lhr but would not have used them from Lgw? Is a better reason for this Lgw vs Lhr story that for those who operate from both, Lgw can take pax from Lhr and in turn weaken Lhr? With some airlines there seems to be an obsession to use Lhr for bragging purposes as opposed to sound financial reasons to do so.

Both BA and Virgin have stated they are/may leave Lgw completely. The role of the current management is to manage through this current crisis. But good management also has to be involved in long term strategy thinking. We are told by various that pax numbers will take between 1-3 years to recover to pre crisis levels. So BA and Virgin leave Lgw and in 3 years time we are back to 2019 levels of traffic. Both these airlines are at that point constrained at LHR due lack of slots. But he, there are at that stage no Lgw slots either. Wizz have them! What do they do then? Start from Southend?

It will be interesting to see if they really carry through with the threat to abandon Lgw, especially BA with Wizz waiting patiently.

Straw man arguement.
It’s not that they were “loss making”, it was that the higher yield traffic had a reluctance to use LGW. Every major airline who has tried both LGW/LHR has done better out of LHR. Even DL who did well at LGW for longer than anyone eventually closed the last flight and moved everything to LHR. LGW suffers due to proximity to LHR, the catchment areas have enormous overlap and the only major benefit LGW can offer is on price. It’s not “bragging purposes” it’s commercial reality. Imagine if Virgin decided to move everything out of LHR to LGW because they got a good deal on fees? Now would BA be
1) Most concerned
2) Sending a mailshot to every Flying Club member reminding them that BA can still fly them to LHR.

If it was, as you suggest, no more than bravado, then they’d have taken Norwegian’s place at LGW. And that ended profitably......? Virgin had only 3-4 daily flights most days, about a third of DI, they can probably consolidate happily at T3 and focus on working with Delta.

I love(d) LGW back when it had a wide selection of non locos but nowadays it’s just an easyJet fortress, and there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s barely Oakland to LHR’s SFO Intl.

[True Blue]

And as you know Skipness the whole premium travel industry is set up to make sure Lhr is always the winner, frequent flyer programs, commercial deals and the list goes on.

[davidjohnson6]

I live in London and have used over 100 times, each of Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Luton. Luton always feels cheap, overcrowded and unpleasant. Stansted feels just about bearable. However Gatwick to me feel good enough - certainly good enough not to need to spend more of my own cash on a higher fare from Heathrow.

I realise that Gatwick doesn't really do connecting flights to a time-poor passenger, but what is it about Heathrow that attracts the O&D people in the pointy end compared to Gatwick ? I know this happens but am puzzled as to why. Does Gatwick just need better lounges ? More high end shops full of bling ? Is it a branding thing ? Snob value ? Answers on a postcard...

[True Blue]

1. Snobbery
2. A huge part of the travel industry is all tied up to prefer Lhr.

[EI-BUD]

I love Gatwick, it's been transformed.
I love flying into LHR though. It's a brand that speaks volumes to me, flying into one of the busiest international airports in the world, Concorde was there, the size of the place, to me it was and still is all of those things. It also felt more premium, and less crowded boarding flights!

Separately I think it actually is in a great location. It is on the West side of London is the natural gateway to everything west of there, it has a very densely populated area, close to so much industry, quick to London centre via Heathrow Express and importantly the serious connectivity hub it is. To TrueBlue's point, maybe a bit of snobbery I guess too.

Gatwick has come a long long way, and I've no doubt it will flourish again. Ironically LGW is a victim of LHRs success, meaning airlines such as BA and VS bed to scale back but cannot forego there LHR slots, hence LGW gets the axe..sad days

[willy wombat]

Tempted to reply “location, location, location”. To overseas pax, LHR is London. All the others - LGW, LTN and STN tend to rank equally as secondary airports in the vicinity of London. Notwithstanding train and tube, many pax like to arrive at or leave the airport by road, either private car or taxi of some sort and LHR is relatively easily accessible from Central London by road unlike LGW which continues to suffer from the fact that the M23 wasn’t extended into central London as originally planned. You also have the fact that over the years many, many businesses whose executives have to travel a lot have deliberately located near to Heathrow. I could go on but in a nutshell, price sensitive traffic will move between the London area airports based on the offer but traffic that is more driven by convenience, frequency etc will gravitate towards LHR thus giving the operators there higher yields and the whole thing just becomes self perpetuating. Final point re M23 - we people from Sussex and Surrey arguably hard done by as other than the M40, the M23 is the only motorway that stops at the M25. Just look how much further into London the M4, M3 and M1 go.

[AirportPlanner1]

Originally Posted by True Blue

1. Snobbery
2. A huge part of the travel industry is all tied up to prefer Lhr.

Both very true. However as EK have found there is a decent premium market out there who want to use LGW (or STN) presumably because they are more convenient to home/destination or out of preference to avoid LHR. EK are able to do this because of their product and the nature of the operation, for others the economics sadly don’t stack up against the industry bias cited.

[willy wombat]

Indeed - EK has made an art form out of discounted (i.e. price sensitive) long haul. Travel from LGW on EK in J, which I did a lot pre lockdown, and while there are traditional business pax, the bulk of the cabin is full of long haul VFR and leisure.

[True Blue]

Ok I understand what you are saying. But on the wider question, will BA and Virgin give up Lgw slots as easily as they have stated? Maybe less of an issue for Virgin as their operation at Lgw had shrunk anyway, but BA at Lgw is the size of many airlines on its own. I see reports that both are saying they will emerge from this crisis as smaller carriers. Really? You are going to downsize and stay smaller for ever? I am sure investors will really love that idea.

[globetrotter79]

Originally Posted by True Blue

on the wider question, will BA and Virgin give up Lgw slots as easily as they have stated?.

BA (through IAG) have plenty of sister carriers to which they could lease LGW slots if they wish. Virgin don’t have the same luxury - and historic appetite by unrelated airlines to lease LGW slots may well have dried up if they think there’s a decent chance that they’ll secure them anyway. Note Wizz Air’s clear commentary to this effect.

[JW95]

South terminal closure

Looks like the earlier rumours were true, the South terminal has now been closed according to LGW's website and all other airlines including Ryanair, Vueling, Wizz Air and Blue Islands have been relocated to the North Terminal alongside EZY until further notice. I believe this is the first time FR and W6 have ever operated from the North too.

[adfly]

I'd personally bet on t'South re-opening at the start of July when things start to pick up a bit more quickly, and the 14 day rubbish is hopefully countered by some air bridges to lower case countries.

[AirportPlanner1]

Originally Posted by adfly

I'd personally bet on t'South re-opening at the start of July when things start to pick up a bit more quickly, and the 14 day rubbish is hopefully countered by some air bridges to lower case countries.

Why would lower case countries want arrivals from a high case country?