Totally agree.

CW247

Not to mention that the majority of LGW routes were somewhat successful in their own right by the end, and it was COVID that ultimately brought the curtain down. Some of the armchair CEOs on this website seem to have forgotten the transatlantic market has been closed for the last 13 months.

Good luck to them. I hope they play a big part in Gatwick's recovery

Vokes55

They managed an operating profit after taking on unsustainable levels of debt and destroying shareholder value to get there. That's not a succesful business plan in anyone's book. To say COVID brought them down is disingenuous to say the least, it was, like flybe and Thomas Cook, an inability to service existing debts, that destroyed the viability of the operation. The US is not going to be open properly til 2022 as we've no idea how panicked leaders will get when COVID comes back in winter, just like the other seasonal viruses. There might be a summer window like last year but we're going into semi lockdown again, that's why furlough and the other emergency legislation was extended, there will be one last push to see us through this winter IMHO.

I know everybody is entitled to their opinion but come on, but some on here really should mull over the history of low cost long haul over the past 50 years ranging from Highland Express to Norwegian. I would have thought that by now that it is not possible to make money with low cost long haul. Personally I think it is scandalous that Norse Atlantic Airways or whatever they want to call themselves would receive an operating licence considering the debts left and the countless people who have lost their jobs.

Skipness One Foxtrot

So going by your theory, and I’m not disputing it, Norse Atlantic should be a roaring success. Operating the routes that were operational profitable in a previous colour scheme, yet detached from the unservicable debt. The rest of your post is crystal ball stuff, but they’ve stated they won’t be starting until late 2021 or early 2022.

Saying COVID brought them down is no more disingenuous than saying low cost long haul brought them down and doesn’t work. A lot of things Norwegian did were unsuccessful, some stupid. A lot of their short haul was haemorrhaging money, and the Max transatlantic venture was doomed from the start. They had a lot of bad luck thrown in with the Max and RR. But one thing was proven was that, on a select few routes, the model can work. And that’s why it’s a small fleet coming back to pick up the routes that DID work.

Some good points. They turned an operating profit on high volume core leisure out of LGW, any future success may depend on how wounded BA are and how willing they are to defend their north atlantic market share post COVID.

I note you said "coming back", this rebrand fools nobody.

Of course not. And as somebody with close friends who lost their jobs with Norwegian in January, I understand the sentiment and skepticism. But if they can bring back the routes that worked, under a more sustainable model, without the debt and other parts of the company that were dragging the core routes down, without the MAX and, hopefully, without the RR issues, then it's good for some of the redundant former employees, it's good for the airport, it's good for the local economy which has been decimated and it's good for the customer.

I do find it odd how many of the contributors on this forum, who would've been happy to see Norwegian go bankrupt years ago with the loss of thousands of jobs, suddenly care about the shareholders or creditors that have lost out. And those same contributors are equally opposed to the (re-)creation of hundreds of jobs, including pilot positions, on a professional pilots forum.

Air travel employment will be strongest if things Gatwick-related is seen to have a robust long-term and sustainable business model. You can try hiring a few pilots but if the business model is rubbish or the creditors keep getting shafted, banks lose confidence in the entire industry and capital / financing for future airlines either becomes more difficult to obtain for future start-up airlines or dries up completely. Furthermore, employees of other airlines (e.g. Easyjet) find their employment T&Cs being degraded if they don't have access to the magic-money-tree granted to Norwegian v2. Selling an unrealistic and unstable image to new hires helps nobody - people have to make life choices and commitments when entering the airline industry - if those plans are wrecked after 18 months, it just leaves a path of destruction all round.

Last autumn, I met a pilot flying a tiny puddle jumper in the back of beyond while he lived in a small town in northern Scandinavia; his wife and small kid were living with her parents elsewhere. He told me how he used to fly a 737 and they lived in Crawley until early 2020. He was hoping for better times. He did not complain and showed dignity. I have sympathy for him and his young family. Somebody like him needs a stable existence, instead of having to scrabble around and moving home so as to find work. That stability comes only when you have secure business models, instead of failed charlatans deciding to roll the dice once more with somebody else's money in the casino

Cute story, unfortunately in the real world the majority of pilots don’t have the means to live in a small town in Northern Scandinavia, and are more likely to be delivering Amazon parcels from Horley until another opportunity comes up.

Evidently those funding Norse Atlantic don’t believe the business plan is “rubbish”, and the point about other T&Cs is largely irrelevant with Wizz Air and Ryanair offering vastly inferior pay and conditions to even the worst of the old Norwegian contracts. Competition from Norwegian may have been given a reason for attacks on T&Cs in certain airlines (whilst reporting a £2billion profit), but if the pilots chose to swallow it up rather than fight it, that’s up to them.

1. Investors and their money will soon be parted, the leasing companies have little choice here as those Dreamliners need to be flying and no one is buying.
2. Two wrongs don't make a right, Norwegian famously used every trick in the Ryanair book and some more to avoid industry level terms and conditions. Pilots can't fight this when there's a never ending supply of kids paying tens of thousands of pounds to qualify as cadet pilots and the laws of supply and demand still apply.

These guys haven't flown a single flight yet but already they're talking about a UK subsidiary on a different AOC alongside whatever the Norse markets will support and to me that's already running before you can walk. You can either be in niche Norse markets that are underserved by SAS and charge good money to grow the market and be a profitable local player or do what they did before, get starry eyed over high volume low yield high frequency super competitive UK markets. It's already a pan European ego trip before one flight has flown IMHO.

So, again going by your theory, surely an airline planning to recruit enough pilots to fly twelve 787s is a positive, as it'll narrow (albeit slightly in Covid times) the gap between demand and supply? BA pilots had every opportunity to fight their diminishing terms and conditions, they just bottled it at the first hurdle when the company threatened to take their staff travel privileges away.

People like to jump on the employment terms bandwagon when it comes to Norwegian (/Norse), but turn a blind eye to the the employment terms of those flying the 130 pink and purple A320s or 450 blue and yellow 737s around Europe, the real bottom feeders who take the "never ending supply of kids" straight out of flight school. Norwegian 787 pilots had far from the worst T&Cs in Europe - probably industry average at worst - and none came straight out of flight school. It's just another excuse to be outraged at Norwegian.

Jetblue have chosen Heathrow and Gatwick as their London airports

1x daily flights to JFK starts 30th September

interesting to have a split Lon operation, assume the LGW flight goes up the road as and when slots become available

At last some good news for Gatwick!
 

NickBarnes

This is absolutely fantastic news for LGW and welcome after having a string of airlines recently suspend/leave Gatwick. Will be nice seeing JFK back on the departure boards again after so long. Plus, JetBlue won't be facing any direct competition from Gatwick (assuming BA don't reinstate their own JFK service). Looking forward to their arrival to the airport soon, I wonder which terminal they will be operating out of long term? Assuming North (provisionally)

Norwegian Mk2 I am sure will operate JFK but yes, BA JFK won’t return so that’s true. Be interesting regards terminals, North to start with. When south opens, next summer ? Be interesting to see who moves over, whether it will be the same as pre covid or not

BA need to slot sit their LGW slots as well so if the opportunity to strangle Zombie-Norwegian2 at birth, why not drop in a LGW-JFK? It's a poor tactical use of a B772 but it could be in their strategic interests. JetBlue are clearly after LHR slots, I'd be surprised if they really want to fly a small London operation across two airports, LHR slots may soon be selling at lower levels as weaker airlines seek emergency liquidity in fast cash, that may also be good news for LGW as some airlines will leave higher cost LHR.

im sure BA/IAG will want to slot sit at LGW as and when waivers are removed but only possible as long as they can protect and operate a large enough LHR schedule to protect all their slots up the road

Welcome JetBlue, and welcome back JFK!
 

Official press release and bookings now live :JetBlue | JetBlue Set to Bring Transatlantic Travelers Low Fares, New Choices and Incredible Service as It Lands at Both London Heathrow and London Gatwick

First flights from LGW-JFK kick off 29th September 7 weekly A321LR service as long anticipated. Schedule upon launch will be:

JFK-LGW

Dep. JFK: 19:50
Arr. LGW: 7:55

LGW-JFK

Dep. LGW: 12:00PM
Arr. JFK: 15:33

JetBlue will be using the North Terminal (whether this is a temporary measure, due to the South Terminal closure remains to be seen). Absolutely delighted for Gatwick, I really am :) Press release also highlights Gatwick as an airport for the "long term growth" of the airline's London-US services, so seemingly confirms that they are indeed here for the long run and here to stay, despite also launching in parallel with LHR.

sadly far too many people think that red means stop, green means go and amber means go as fast as you can. How many people really need to go on holiday to an amber country? How many people really need to be told that going to an amber country involves more risk than going to a green one?

But Going to an amber country is legal.

as long as you follow the rules on testing and home quarantine you aren’t breaking the law.

It becomes a grey area when you’re advised not to rather than not being allowed. Surely travel Insurance becomes invalid though if FCO advice against travel to a country?

JW95

I would 100% love to agree with you as I love Gatwick and flew many happy times out of it BUT I have been around to know press releases are PR fluff and forgotten tomorrow. They've fought hard for LHR slots and if they can get 1/2 decent ones as COVID casualties disrupt the slot pool, then they can compare LHR vs. LGW numbers and every single US airline that has operated from both airports has upped sticks and left Gatwick. Maybe narrow body A321 NEO ops will mean that will no longer happen but it will literally be unprecedented and we won't know until we're settled into a post COVID world.
Don't set your heart on it but fingers crossed.

Sounds like Belavia might not be flying to Gatwick for a while
https://news.sky.com/story/transport...ained-12315967

Should have renamed airport London Chelsea today!

Gatwick Airlines- page error?
 

Just noticed something strange on the LGW terminal page which has recently been updated to now no longer show Virgin Atlantic as operating at LGW. As has been the case for the past year, the South Terminal has been closed until further notice and all airlines are currently operating at the North Terminal. However, it indicates that China Airlines is/will operate from South upon their return later this year, while other airlines, including suspended users (e.g. Cathay Pacific, Air China) are now indicated to be operating North (again, assuming services are reinstated by these carriers in the near future). Is this a page error, or does it indicate that some of these airlines may be in the pipeline to return?

Its all a bit of a guessing game at the moment. China Airlines haven’t managed to get permanent slots at LHR so might come back. CX is doubtful. I imagine it would take a while to get back up to 5 daily at LHR given they are only at 5 per week at the moment. If demand really came back strong then maybe. Otherwise nobody really knows.

Re Virgin Atlantic at Gatwick - fairly soon after Worldwide Air Travel basically screeched to a halt and Lockdowns began over a year ago, Virgin Atlantic having furloughed or laid off most of it's Crews and ground staff formally announced to them that they would NOT ever be returning to LGW.
The brand new LGW Virgin Clubhouse was closed down, and Virgin's Gatwick HQ 'The Office' has been sold.

Ok so, big firms can change their minds over time, but there is no word that I know of VS going back to LGW.

Such a shame really, end of an Era.

anything can happen but I can’t see VS at LGW in the short to medium term. Maybe in the years to come some seasonal services if demand is such that LHR can’t handle all that VS wants to operate but even then I’m not sure.

EZY is so vitally important to GAL, now more than ever, I think they have 60% (?) of LGW slots? So once they get back to or close to utilising those then LGW will have it’s bread and butter back but replacing the likes of VS, BA short haul and DY won’t be easy. I know Wizz are always making great noises about LGW plans and Norwegian Mk2 may become reality but still gaps to fill

On a different note,does anybody know if the Gatwick Express is running,if not how do i get from Gatwick to central London.

National Express coach.....

National express only operating there 025 service to London at present. It operates 4 x Daily via LHR

Southern services to Victoria and Thameslink services to London Bridge have been running throughout the pandemic and continue to run, albeit subject to the occasional bit of weekend engineering work

Thanks for your replys.

Deffo now!

See Air Senegal are to operate a scheduled service to Stansted this summer operating 3 times a week to Dakar. Isn’t this the kind of traffic that should be selecting Gatwick? May not be a long term service but would at least look good for Gatwick.

Just before the pandemic, Air Senegal announced a plan to open a route to London in summer 2020 - but it was cancelled during the spring.
Do you have a source to indicate they will begin (or resume) flying to London in summer 2021 ?

Appear to be doing well over Dakar-MXP tho increasing to 5pw from 1.7.21 on A321.

VS
 

772

Sadly, you're right. The airline is/has just undergone an enormous restructuring programme, including fleet downsizing and massive redundancies in an attempt to stay afloat in the midst of this truly awful pandemic. It is such a shame for both the airline and of course, for LGW, as it had historically been the birth place of the airline. Even prior to Covid, it is arguable that VS's commitment to LGW was questionable on the basis of stagnant growth, long standing leisure routes being moved across to LHR (LAS springs to mind) and the "flagship" A350s and 789s being stationed at LHR while older A332s and 744s were handed down to Gatwick. Saying that, I do recall VS planning to launch service to JFK from Gatwick, although I suspect this was largely driven to drive DY/BA off the route as opposed to base expansion. I really hope that VS will return to Gatwick one day, perhaps once LHR fills up again and VS need to utilise their slot portfolio to grow their business route frequencies (JFK, LAX et al.), then its possible the leisure and Caribbean flying will be transferred back to Gatwick. I think VS were quoted as mentioning they would be retaining their Gatwick slot portfolio for this such instance, does anyone know if they still have hold over the slots? They invested £££££££ in their check in/lounge there following the move to the North Terminal, so everything would (presumably) be ready to go for them if they come back.

this talk of VS retaining their LGW slots for a possible return, surely they mean as long as the slot waivers are in place? The minute the 80/20 rule is returned, or even a 50/50 then they’ll have to give them up surely.

This might be what VS might want, but not great for LGW. Surely it's unrealistic for VS to to expect they can continue to block slots when they aren't using them and there are others wanting to fly from LGW.