Friend who lives in one of the areas very close to Gatwick said that if they gave him £15k when it starts up he would be more than content and forget about the £1000.

Bet he is not the only one thinking like that.

racedo £15k isn't that much when you consider the possible reduction in house values from noise "blight".

Mate said next door sold, exact same house as his, not in as good condition and if he sold for that price it would "ONLY" have doubled in price in 12 years.

ZB/TCX/TOM Long Haul
 

It is interesting to see how small the ZB and TCX long haul operations have become from LGW this summer, although I realise the former had cut down on long haul a few years back. For a typical week in June/July the schedules are like this:

ZB/MON -

SFB - 2 weekly
TAB - 1 weekly

TCX -

CUN - 2 weekly
HOG - 1 weekly

Admittedly there are a few more flights in the winter with TCX but just 3 weekly flights must be one of their smallest long haul schedules in a very long time from LGW. Their focus on MAN for long haul is quite clear, as there are ~17 weekly flights from there! Meanwhile MON/ZB only have 2 weekly flights to SFB from MAN.

To compare with the above this is Thomson's schedule ex. LGW for a similar week.

AUA - 1 weekly
CUN - 4 weekly
MBA - 1 weekly
MBJ - 2 weekly
MRU - 1 weekly
POP - 1 weekly
PUJ - 2 weekly
PVR - 1 weekly
SFB - 2 weekly

So it seems not all of the charters (yes I know ZB/MON have moved away from that model) have shrunk , although it is interesting to see how routes like SFB have suffered frequency wise against the competition - just 2 flights per week each from TOM/ZB while BA/VS offer 13 each!

Long haul
 

Does anyone know how the new Norwegian long haul routes are selling, with just a few months until the first flights take to the air?

With a seemingly improving economic outlook, could BA eventually respond with some additional long haul capacity at LGW; I wondered if in time the 787 could join their LGW long haul fleet & potentially open up routes that might otherwise not work?

Norwegian - Judging by the fact that their fares are only a little below BA/Virgin currently I'd say they are probably selling well, although please do not quote me on this. I cannot see why they wouldn't be, as Norwegian offer a good product and price, and more importantly they have only launched the flights with quite low frequencies. This technique seems to have worked rather well on their med routes launched last year, so it would be nice to see lightening strike twice!

As for BA it was rumoured that the 12 787-10's on order were destined to replace the LGW based 772's. This would be an increase of ~2 aircraft compared to the current fleet, plus I'd imagine there might be a few more seats on each of these. What would happen with the 4 class routes I'm not sure, to have mixed configurations in a fleet of 12 seems a little impractical. I'd imagine the most likely solution would be to also have a couple of 4 class 789's for BGI/BDA and any other routes that may have some demand for first in the future.

cant see brand new BA 787s at LGW anytime soon -8 or -9's

Having seen the plans for new runway and terminal I am wondering what they will call the new terminal.

They already have North and South Terminals and as new will be South of South Terminal will it be known as the "Deep South Terminal" or the "Beautiful South Terminal" :E

Terminals
 

I heard it's to be called laker terminal,

New terminal name
 

Brighton-Shoreham
:)

Belgrano Terminal :eek:

Perhaps best to use numbers: LGW-1, LGW-2 and LGW-3. A new midfield terminal would present an opportunity to demolish the existing east/south terminal and start over.

Never understood why the east terminal is called "south".

How about historic Crawley International:8

today's "Times" says that BA are to be evicted from the N terminal back to the South and EasyJet & Virgin will replace them

http://www.standard.co.uk/business/business-news/easyjet-set-to-rule-the-north-terminal-after-gatwick-deal-9218900.html

Would be Bizzare to EasyJet to kick out BA. Why don't they move Thomson Airways to the South Terminal instead? Or will it still be too Small for EasyJet :)

BA friends have always labelled Sarf Terminal as Charter and Low Cost Land, Chav city on occasions................being moved to there is going to hurt egos.

It does make sense to try and find a way to accommodate all easyJet flights in one terminal but the South Terminal has always had something of an image problem in comparison to the North so BA might not be too happy if they're forced to move?

Apparently it's a done deal, all easyJet ops at LGW will be from North Terminal. I so wonder if BA have accepted the move to South Terminal. 😕

Seems such a shame considering the investment made to the new check in area!

I was under the impression that it would be impossible to fit all Easy ops into either terminal. For the passenger arriving by train the South terminal is actually much better.