Wizzair UK to base one of their new A321NEOs at Gatwick, other 3 at Luton.

Vokes55

Very true, short haul will continue to be a pertinent driver for LGW's recovery going forward, and it is encouraging to see EZY building up their LGW station again in conjunction with Wizz Air's new base here. With this in mind, what are BA's plans RE. LGW short haul? Presumably these aren't likely to be reinstated until the W21 schedules, given the majority of BAs traffic still seems to be consolidated at LHR?

Saying that, I do hope that LGW will experience a bounce back in long haul as demand for international travel starts to rebuild itself. LGW had a pretty good and diverse long haul airline and route portfolio prior to Covid, and it is absolutely devastating to see it disappear. The departure of DY long haul has more-or-less wiped out all of LGW-USA services with the exception of MCO which is now only served by BA following the departure of VS. Hopefully LGW will be able to rebuild this going forward as there clearly is demand for LGW-USA services in the long term. Same thing goes for services to the far East. I was recently talking with someone in airline relations at LGW and they are keen to get Cathay Pacific back at Gatwick in the next year or two once things stabilise, on the back of the success of the HKG route in conjunction with their LHR operation. So demand and success of long haul at LGW clearly is there and has worked before (e.g. Emirates and Qatar servicing both LHR and LGW simultaneously) and hopefully long haul airlines will come back to LGW once there is sufficient demand to justify.

China Airlines
 

Sadly it looks as though CI LGW-TPE suspension has now been extended until late October, with the route continuing to operate to/from LHR in the interim.

Regarding Cathay, there is in all likelihood going to be a huge influx of people in Hong Kong holding British passports moving to the Uk. This should make Gatwick very feasible for services.
As to Emirates, at present their booking site certainly for November only shows the early afternoon service and this is not good for connecting to many connection destinations from Dubai. The previously morning and evening services were much better for this. Fortunately I have been able to book Qatar Airways morning services, and avoid the BAW ones.
Many other Far East destination offered for example by TravelBag were from Heathrow in place of Gatwick.

JW95

very encouraging for GAL that EZY are growing their base and I believe have got some ex DY slots? That combined with WIZZ is positive for the airport.

although a much smaller operation than EZY, GAL must be very keen for BA to bring some sort of SH operation back but not sure if or when as when the slot waivers return the airline won’t want to risk any LHR slots, but on the other hand wouldn’t think they would want to lose pretty much their entire LGW slot portfolio

i guess until summer, autumn when hopefully things start to move again we won’t know

Only North Terminal.

No actually your wrong, the South terminal is also following suit even though no flights , they are making sure no one drops off and then takes the transit over to the North
Grim ....

👍 Charge will be going live at the South Terminal on 12th April I think? I wonder what are the chances of the South Terminal reopening to flights this year and BA, Ryanair, Wizz Air et al. moving back?

I cant see the South terminal opening before s22

772 - could you perhaps see the South terminal opening for maybe two or three months over this summer ? Maybe mid July to mid October ?

MARKEYD

I believe the 'transit' is actually a bus, so really grim.

Slamming a fiver to drop someone off is harsh whereas a £3 airport fee per ticketed passenger wouldn't even be noticed. It's the stripping out of costs which have caused a lot of the friction between airports and users. We know they don't come free but people see a bundled cost in the small print of your ticket as the cost of doing business but see machines charging you money before accessing security, (looking at you NQY, the 2nd most officious airport in the UK after MAN!) or taking a fiver off grandad for dropping you off at the kerbside as daylight robbery. Just up the airport usage charges FGS. It's not as if Luton becomes way more attractive to save £3 in a bundled charge at LGW!

And get slammed by the airlines for increasing charges and forcing them to put up air fares?

davidjohnson6

Personally, no I don’t.

I can’t think GAL would open the South until they have to. This summer, even if things go well, BA, what 7/8 flights a day?, little to no DY, no VS, no EK until w21 I believe, a smaller EZY/BY operation than pre covid. Sure we may see small VY, EI, GR ops plus a few other smaller airlines.

I assume landslide checkin terminal capacity, will be the driver for opening the South as in terms of airside, plenty of stands to use and even if it got busy plenty of coaching gates down at the cow sheds gate 45 to coach pax to aircraft.

All up in the air and subjective, but until EZY get up to a sizeable operation I think North has the room for what looks likely this summer.

SWBKCB

By *THREE BRITISH POUNDS*, yes, slam away.

brianj

I suspect CX will opt to restore the FIVE daily pax schedules into LHR before LGW gets a look in.

MARKEYD

Following suit but not applicable yet because they not in place as of last Saturday.

Skipness One Foxtrot

BUT the family of 4 who live in Redhill and get the train pay £12 for no benefit.

That's why I said £3 rather than £5. Unbundling of costs has been the way of the industry but as in most things in life we don't know when to stop.

It's not rational, it's perception and it the perception could be removed with the nominal fee. Decent infrastructure needs to be paid for, otherwise every airport would be Luton and every airline would be Spirit. (Looking at you British Airways A320 NEOs)

Airlines need to understand that airports need to make money.

Or rather the airlines will only help pay towards infrastructure they believe their customers will value, for instance EasyJet are not going to pay for premium facilities primarily used by Emirates or BA Club World.

SWBKCB

I think the same could equally be said in reverse!

FRatSTN

I don't think things like lounges come out of general fees to locos. Airlines who want them invest in them, often heavily so. Some airlines resent cross subsidising extravagances like er....travellators, airbridges and.....(no really!) wheelchair meet and assist. We all use the core facilites, drop off should be one, like check in (I use occasionally), bag drop (seldom) etc.

Some of us rather like the idea of flying for minimal cost...

Then you'll love Luton.

A whopping 19 passenger flights departing from Gatwick today, the highest since January 10th. Nice to see destinations like Jersey, St Lucia, Bilbao, Rome and Paris back for the first time in a while.

Freebird Airlines now has Antalya on sale this summer, 2 weekly. I hope all this extra capacity to Turkey is needed, as looking at the Covid case numbers in Turkey, it doesn't look good.

Not sure about BAs plans for LGW this summer. My flights to ACE in July/August have just been transferred to LHR.

I read today BA will not operate any short haul flights ex Lgw this summer. No flights now until winter timetable.

My BA flight to St Lucia has also been moved to LHR again this summer.

True Blue

Sad news for LGW. Unfortunately, this more-or-less confirms that the South Terminal will now remain closed for the remainder of 2021 :( I really do hope BA and LGW will be able to bounce back from this awful pandemic once international travel resumes on large scale, whether that be later in the summer or early in the autumn. It is desperately sad watching just how badly Gatwick has been hit with the near total loss of its USA network, and long serving airlines such as Virgin Atlantic. Given that there is still so much uncertainty and lack of clarity regarding the resumption of leisure international travel, my guess is that we probably won't see significant improvements regarding LGW for the rest of 2021, but hopefully in 2022. Hopefully by then LGW can begin to rebuild itself and start bringing back some of its lost services, including long haul operators that were doing well at LGW prior to suspending operations.

Gatwick does seem to have been impacted the most among the ‘London’ airports. Like you I hope that by 2022 things will start to look a lot brighter for the airport.

Isn't Norse Atlantic Airways going to be at LGW?
They'll probably secure the US routes to the likes of JFK, SFO, etc. How sustainable that model is remains to be seen, though at least will give LGW that business segment. I think that once a semblance of normality resumes LGW will quickly be full up again. Though with a new mix, less wide bodies and more low cost short haul in the mix. Hopefully the airport can create arrangements that allow for the eventual accommodation of more long haul wide body flying.

Gatwick’s problem is that it is suffering from slot hoarding so the likes of Wizz can’t get a foothold at the airport even though Gatwick is on life support. If the airlines won’t release the slots they should at least be made to pay Gatwick an income for slot retention. That would at least focus a few minds.

EI-BUD

Correct, that is the plan and it is the intention to very closely mirror the ex DY long haul operation. IIRC, they are anticipating a December 21 launch, although this may yet change in the months ahead depending on the progress of the vaccination programme and emergence of travel corridors between Europe and the USA. Time will indeed tell. Certainly I am hopeful that this will work out for LGW, as prior to Covid, USA services from here were very popular and provided many of us with a good alternative to LHR. It'll be good to see more US destinations back on the departure boards at LGW. On the subject of long haul, I do wonder what the picture will look like for Gatwick going forward medium and long term? I am not anticipating too much of a difference recovery-wise in S21 but what do people reckon LGW will have in store for W21 and S22? LHR will, inevitably quickly fill back up again, so I wonder if those airlines which suspended LGW in the wake of the pandemic will be back in the next year or two? (e.g. Virgin, Cathay Pacific, China Airlines).

EI-BUD

You mean Norwegian II : Back From Insolvency
https://flynorse.com/
"Norse Atlantic Airways believes that there is a need for a new and innovative airline serving the low-cost intercontinental market as the world re-opens. The new airline will offer comfortable flights with fuel-efficient and more environmentally friendly Boeing 787 Dreamliners."
It's not NEW it's a warmed up and relaunched Norwegian Long Haul using the same aicraft and probably the same staff coming back by necessity as the "Rednose Warriors" are recalled. As for innovating, they mean doing EXACTLY what was done before but having written off the enormous debts accumulated in version one.

Cathay will want to get up to speed on 5 x daily slot holding at LHR first and I think China Airlines are super keen on LHR, however Air China may be back but it depends on how fast that market recovers. It looks like they're moving towards military intervention in Taiwan so who knows!

...Norse Atlantic Airways = Disruptor Mk2 possibly of course.

Seems to be quite a lot of that sort of thing going on around the industry at the moment ...

Norwegian/Norse;

Albert Einstein is widely credited with saying, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.

I happen to agree with him.

On the other hand, Norwegian suffered from the most unreliable engines in the history of commercial aviation, which resulted in obscene wet leasing costs for years on end. The Max debacle you could say did not really impact them as Covid superceded that issue. Lessons have been learnt and this would be the first time the same management of a previously failed transatlantic loco are starting over again. Usually it's new kids on the block. Ultimately, the legacies will fend them off once again with a price war but I see it working for 5-10 years before that. In that time, it would've made a few people exceptionally more rich. Which like all businesses, is the primary aim.