FYI Norwegian flew LGW-LAS winter 2016-2018 from 2, growing to 4 weekly. Never came back late 2019 though.

I was last there in the summer (8th or 9th trip over the last 15 years). Awful Airport, few amenities available (one or two cafes, no business lounge (unless you go through CIP). You can wait over 3 hours to get your visa on arrival, pay in cash for almost everything. Country is one of the most closed left, although people are generally well meaning.

A lot of transit travel onto India.

From all the new route announcements, it doesn't appear that all the EI slots have been distributed yet to other airlines. Are these BA slots leased to EI or EI owned slots that will be available for any airline to take up? They had 4/5 slots per day, so room for some significant expansion for someone.

Norse 16:45 LAS-LGW departure seems quite early.

Not necessarily, in comparison.

BA226 LAS 15.45 LGW 09.55+

In comparison to

BA0274 LAS 21.45 LHR 15.50+

https://www.aeroroutes.com/eng/240329-udns24lgw

I think the country 'Iraq' needs to be inserted after Northern

No - it says "Northern summer 2024 season", so the period the flight operates.

Air Peace inaugural Gatwick-lagos flight
 

I was lucky enough to see the Air Peace 777 (a 200 series) operating today's inaugural Gatwick-Lagos flight line up for takeoff on the main runway. I saw it from the window of the train which took me from Gatwick to Brighton. So, Air Peace finally made it to the UK and to Gatwick!


Upon my return to Gatwick, I exited the station via one of the routes that took me straight to South Terminal check-in. When I walked past the info board showing the airlines operating from South Terminal and their allocated check-in zone, I also saw that TAAG had been listed. In my experience, GAL only do this if the airlines concerned have confirmed that they are actually going to operate from the airport. So, does this mean TAAG is after all starting their route from Gatwick to Luanda within the summer 2024 timetable period (most likely later during that period)?

TAAG has been shown on the allocated check-in zone ever since the airline was supposed to start flying to the airport in December 2023.

TAAG has been shown on the airports' arrivals/departure boards ever since the airline was supposed to be flying to the airport in December 2023.

If and when the airline actually starts flights to LGW. The day that TAAG releases any further information regarding their intention on starting a Luanda to LGW route, I'll start believing that it's actually going to happen. TAAG has a shortage of long haul aircraft at the moment. Perhaps we might have to wait until they start receiving their Boeing B789s.

But in saying that, of course I would like to see TAAG finally land at LGW.

Also nice to know that you coincidently witnessed for yourself the Air Peace Boeing 777-200 departing LGW on it's inaugural flight back to Lagos.

There is so much potential regarding LGW and the possibility of attracting more African airlines to the airport in the future.

According to reports BA will operate the 787-10 from Gatwick next summer to Barbados: https://travelweekly.co.uk/news/air/...bados-capacity
Also being reported that BA will operate Islamabad 3 times weekly from LGW.

Think the wording of the article is slightly confused. The actual quote from BA only refers to Heathrow.

In recent years, BA has operated a winter seasonal service from Gatwick to Barbados and this is not returning. BA has increased Barbados from Heathrow up to twice daily, with a 787-10 aircraft.

BA could theoretically operate Barbados from Gatwick again with a 787-10 on a W pattern from Heathrow, but I doubt they'd do it.

BA start double daily from LHR to BGI 27Oct with a combination of 787-9 787-1.
current schedule is daily from LHR with 787-1

islamabad still showing 3 x weekly from LHR summer 2024 and winter 24-25

Winter seasonal Gatwick to Bridgetown will not operate in winter 2024. The service will be twice daily from Heathrow. The Travel Weekly headline is incorrect.
I do believe the Islamabad service is moving to Gatwick this Winter. Timetable will be updated shortly I believe.

Allen Onyema, the CEO of Air Peace, has disclosed that since the airline began its direct flights from Lagos to London a few weeks ago, Gatwick Airport has deliberately frustrated its operations, aiming to impede its activities in the UK recently. Onyema made this revelation on Tuesday during an exclusive interview on the Channels TV evening program, Politics Today, where he shared insights into his airline’s experience after launching the Lagos-London route.

The CEO of Air Peace has observed that since the airline’s entrance into the Nigeria-UK route, which resulted in lower fares, foreign carriers have been pushing back. He cited recent challenges with ground handling and space allocation at Gatwick Airport as proof of these retaliatory actions.

• “On the inaugural flight out of London.
• “24 hours to the time, they (management of Gatwick Airport) moved us to another checking area other than the place assigned to us.
• “The place they gave us, the carousel was not working.
• “So, when you are checking people, you need to manually carry the load 50 metres away to drop it somewhere else just to delay you.
• “No other airline faced that,” Onyema explained.

Onyema further revealed that on the day Air Peace was reassigned to a terminal with a malfunctioning baggage carousel, it was subsequently observed that the boarding gate in that area had collapsed, adding to the airline’s growing list of frustrations at the London airport.

Recommended reading: Foreign airlines lowering Lagos-London fares to push us out of market -Air Peace

More insight

• Onyema delved into the challenges Air Peace faced, recounting instances where, despite completing boarding on time, flights were delayed by an additional 20 minutes because the airport’s management failed to provide ground handlers promptly. He emphasized that while Air Peace consistently departs on schedule from Lagos, it regularly encounters delays at Gatwick Airport.
• He suggested that these obstructions might be part of a deliberate strategy to displace Air Peace from Gatwick under the 80/20 slot rule, which mandates that airlines must maintain 80% on-time departure to retain their slots. Failure to meet this standard risks having their slots revoked and given to other airlines.
• To combat this, Onyema mentioned that Air Peace is documenting these incidents in a dossier to highlight the deliberate tactics by Gatwick Airport to hinder its operations. This comprehensive record will be presented to the Federal Government to seek intervention and address the injustices faced at Gatwick Airport.

Gatwick is not responsible for ground handling. That is between Air Peace and whoever was awarded the ground handling contract.
I just do not believe the airport would deliberately obstruct a new carrier to the airport.
Remember this is the man who demanded access to Heathrow and wanted the Nigerian Government to stop BA from having access from LHR to Lagos.
I think he has an agenda here!

LGW needs to give Air Peace a chance. 🥸

Red Handling handles Air Peace.

The Air Peace CEO needs to grow up and stop shouting his mouth off more like! He is still cross he didn't get Heathrow.

And the chances of that are.... 🙄

Exactly, that is why he is making a fuss.

Air Peace CEO's allegations
 

Does anyone definitively know whether Air Peace has actually ever really applied for slots at any London area airport and whether any slots have actually ever really been allocated to this airline? When I recently checked the ACL slot allocation report, I couldn't come across any evidence to this effect. I also find the current arrangement between Air Peace and Flynorse UK rather odd, i.e., Norse
operating four weekly services for Air Peace on week days under an ACMI arrangement, with Air Peace operating with its own metal on week-ends only. I assume the Gatwick slots Air Peace use are actually part of Norse's Gatwick slot allocation for this summer season for which they haven't got any use themselves, and instead of forfeiting them to a competitor, they temporarily arranged to operate them on behalf of Air Peace. Can someone perhaps shed some more light on this?

Regarding the Air Peace CEO's allegations against Gatwick, I feel these are baseless. Why would Gatwick, who welcome new long-haul airlines and routes with open arms seek to intentionally undermine a new long-haul airline re-establishing a long-lost, much-coveted long-haul route, and in the process tarnish its growing reputation as a viable alternative to Heathrow with much higher profile long-haul airlines, none of whom b.t.w. seem to support these allegations?

Other allegations the Air Peace CEO has reportedly made against Gatwick incl. Gatwick allegedly intentionally delaying publicly acknowledging Air Peace's inaugural service to their airport, as well as allegedly denying Air Peace the customary water cannon salute for its inaugural flight.

I think the Air Peace CEO is playing to the gallery here, indulging in dirty politics which appeal to certain sections of the Nigerian public (and the public in many developing countries more generally), who seek to attribute everything that's wrong with the administration of their country to the former colonial power despite decades of independence which afforded plenty of opportunities to right former colonial wrongs.

Flygatwick

I think that your last paragraph in particular is spot on and you're comments are absolutely true.

Regarding "water salutes", this doesn't seem to happen as often as it used to with inaugural flights. Plus it was also still fairly dark when the inaugural Air Peace flight arrived at LGW. You can just imagine the airlines reaction to this not happening and their unsubstantiated reasons behind it.

Regardless of all that I'm still under the opinion that Air Peace won't be at LGW in five years time or any London airport for that matter.

Did you mean five months ! They are a sham; when they hold supplier invoices as they will , they will be gone.

.

I was very over optimistic when I stated five years. I agree with you, more like five months. I should have typed months rather than years. I think we can safely say that there will be no longevity of service concerning Air Peace at LGW or to the UK, for that matter.

Aer Lingus slots reallocated / temporarily leased out?
 

Having had a look at Aurigny's new Gatwick-Guernsey summer timetable the other day, I noticed that they appear to have increased their daily rotations from five / six per day to eight per day. Is this perhaps where some of the Aer Lingus Gatwick slots could have gone?

On a different note, who could be next?

Are we likely to see Cathay's return to Gatwick, if not this coming winter season, the following summer season (as they don't seem to have sufficient staff at the moment to resume all of their pre-pandemic routes and services)? I very much hope so.

Another possibility of a Gatwick service resumption after an even longer gap (compared with Cathay) is Etihad resuming Gatwick - Abu Dhabi, perhaps as early as summer 2025, should they decide to add a fifth daily London frequency to their current four daily Heathrow - Abu Dhabi frequencies.

And then there is a possibility of Air Arabia launching Gatwick-Sharjah as the airline's CEO hinted in a recent interview that Air Arabia was looking at launching a London service from its hubs in the UAE (Sharjah and / or Ras Al Khaimah) once it's A321 neo LRs are delivered. Realistically, this is unlikely to happen before 2026. What makes me think that if such a service is launched, Gatwick is the most likely London airport to receive it is the non-availability of Heathrow slots (and as an LCC - of sorts - I can't see Air Arabia paying the sort of money Heathrow slots command) and the fact that Air Arabia Maroc already fly to Gatwick.

As well, there are number of possibilities of existing and new (for Gatwick) South Asian airlines adding starting new services from Gatwick later this year and next:

Air India is still expected to reinstate its previously planned Gatwick-Bengaluru service, especially since the airline has meanwhile confirmed that Bengaluru will be its second global hub after Delhi and its first South Indian hub. In addition, there have been reports that the airline is planning to add more frequencies from London to its main Delhi hub - additional to the daily Heathrow-Delhi frequency Air India will inherit from Vistara once the merger between these two Tata-owned full service airlines has been consummated - to be added at Gatwick due to non-availability of the required Heathrow slots. In addition, the Indian media has also reported that weekly Gatwick-Kochi frequencies are set to increase from three to four later this year, and the Air India manager for northeastern India has been quoted as saying that the airline is mulling launching a direct London-Kolkata service. Again, due to non-avalability of Heathrow slots, this route is likely to operate from Gatwick (should it become reality, subject to Air India being allocated sufficient, suitably timed Gatwick slots). Moreover, once again subject to there being relevant slot availability at Gatwick, I believe it is highly likely Air India will want to launch direct services from London to the new airport at Navi Mumbai (New Bombay), the greater Mumbai area's second international airport due to become operational at the end of this year or early next, that the airline will want to reinstate direct London-Hyderabad services and probably also look at starting direct London-Chennai flights.

Other than Air India planning to add to its existing Gatwick services, as I already said previously, there is a possibility of Indigo, India's biggest (and by some accounts now Asia's biggest and the world's third most valuable publicly listed airline after Delta and Ryanair) airline, launching Gatwick-Delhi, Gatwick - (Navi) Mumbai and Gatwick-Bengaluru should they go ahead with reported plans to add a dedicated long-haul widebody fleet of 30 A350s, with these services most likely to commence in 2026 or 2027.

Beyond India, other South Asian possibilities launching services from Gatwick include US Bangla Airlines, a Bangladeshi hybrid airline, which recently acquired A330s capable of flying direct from Bangladesh to the UK with a viable payload (with the first batch currently serving destinations in West Asia). This airline has been reported as looking at launching direct flights from Dhaka and Sylhet to London. Indeed, this airline actually did already operate a short-lived regular scheduled low-frequency, multi stop Gatwick-Dhaka service using MD80 narrowbodies ca. 10-12 years ago. Then, there is a possibility of Pakistan International Airlines resuming flights from London to Karachi and Lahore should they pass the current simultaneous safety audits of the CAA, FAA and EASA as a necessary precondition for resuming flights to the UK, the US and the EU, respectively. Although Pakistan International has retained its Heathrow slots (currently leased to Turkish Airlines), given the dire financial state of the airline, they may decide to continue leasing them to Turkish or to sell them altogether. Given that Sri Lankan Airlines is in a similar financial state, they may decide to lease out their Heathrow slots as well and transfer their London operations to Gatwick instead.

Elsewhere in Asia, my money is still on Starlux launching a Gatwick-Taipei A350 service.

Facing in the opposite geographic direction from the UK, there is also a possibility of Delta adding a summer-seasonal Gatwick-Boston service (as originally planned pre-pandemic) to its current summer-seasonal Gatwick-JFK service, United launching a summer-seasonal Gatwick-Newark service and perhaps even American launching a summer-seasonal Gatwick-Philadelphia service.

Can I have some of what you've been smoking

Starlux said they are focused on U.S. market for now but will eventually go to Europe. Although they are very much marketing themselves as a high quality top level airline and seem to have a lot of money so I suspect they would pay for LHR if needed.

I can’t see United at LGW. They have a maintenance base and huge lounge at LHR plus their partners. It would make no sense to add a random once a day to LGW.

AA won’t be back either. BA is still short of frames and I would imagine AA could take over BA routes if needed like the do or use BA’s LHR slots of which they have plenty of slot sitters.

I suspect Etihad will cough up and pay for more LHR slots if they want to increase frequencies just as they have done in the past.

I would guess that further long haul growth will come from India, China possibly Thai, and African carriers.

🤣🤣🤣

Air Peace complaints against Gatwick (cont.)
 

The latest complaint added to the Air Peace CEO's catalogue against Gatwick is that their turnaround is too tight. Apparently, the Gatwick senior management's "ulterior motive" here is to blacken Air Peace's reputation by setting them up to ruin their punctuality record at the airport. Funny though that this seems to be an issue for Air Peace only and not for any other regular airline at Gatwick.

Just for comparison: The daily Air Peace service from Lagos has a scheduled arrival time of 7:35 am. The scheduled departure time of the flight in the opposite direction is 11:10 am. The first of three daily Emirates services from Dubai has a scheduled arrival time of 7:30 am. The aircraft operating this flight is scheduled to return to Dubai at 10:05 am. So, Emirates has one hour less to turn around its aircraft - either a 777-300ER or an A380, both of which are bigger than Air Peace's 777-200ER or its subcontracted Fly Norse 787-9s and take longer to turn around assuming similar loads - and can apparently do this (ATC delays excluded) and - to the best of my knowledge has never complained about this being an issue (and if there was something they are / were unhappy about the arrangements at Gatwick, such as Emirates not being impressed by Gatwick's temporary now dismantled A380 boarding gate at the far end of pier 6 which has now been replaced by a superior permanent structure at gate 558 where pier 4 and pier 5 meet, they'll quietly take it up with Gatwick management instead of going public in the media). Not only that, but the turns of Emirates' second and third daily Dubai services at Gatwick are even tighter (12:30-14:30 and 19:45-21:45), leaving just two hours on the ground to turn around an A380 (with the high-capacity, two-class 615-seater regularly being used on the third daily evening turn).

Never say never
 

I'd say we'll have to wait and see.

Many people (myself included) never thought that seeing Singapore Airlines, the best example of of a high-quality, full-service long-haul airline I can think of whose two-letter flight number prefix SQ actually stands for superior quality, at Gatwick other than on a one-off charter or a diversion can be anything other than a pipe dream. And as far as the money to buy the slots needed to increase frequencies at Heathrow is concerned, as one of the most consistently profitable and one of the most highly capitalised airlines of one of the wealthiest and economically most successful nations, Singapore Airlines could surely have found this money to buy these slots off a struggling, effectively slot-sitting airline at Heathrow. Yet they decided to come to Gatwick (possibly recognising the value of the additional connecting passenger and cargo traffic Gatwick can generate in areas outside of the Heathrow catchment, something Emirates already recognised three decades ago as far as Gatwick is concerned and more recently as far as Stansted is concerned as well). So, your comment regarding Starlux as well as Etihad is premature in my opinion.

Regarding the big three US legacy carriers, using your argument as to why United wouldn't ever consider operating an additional daily summer-seasonal service from Gatwick to Newark, pretty much the same could also be said about Delta. They also have all their Skyteam alliance partners at Heathrow, incl. their main transatlantic JV partner Virgin Atlantic, with their Heathrow presence being all-year round dwarfing their single daily summer-seasonal Gatwick-JFK service. Yet they decided to come to Gatwick last summer after a 12-year hiatus, even after JV partner Virgin had ditched Gatwick entirely at the start of the pandemic, and decided to come back again this summer. I don't think Delta only did this because Virgin gave them one of their former four to five daily Gatwick slot pairs, i.e., essentially only to do Virgin a favour so that not all of their former Gatwick slots get passed to other airlines with whom they have no business relationship in the increasingly unlikely event that Virgin decided to return to Gatwick. Also re a potential future seasonal United presence at Gatwick, I know from a presentation Gatwick did last year, which was about the long-haul airlines their route development team is focusing on, United was one of the airlines mentioned on one of the PowerPoint slides I saw (as were Japan Airlines and LatAm b.t.w.). While there was no mention of American, in an interview the head of the Gatwick route development team gave to a media outlet I can't remember at the moment, she said that she was the former head of Philadelphia Airport's route development team and that she wanted to use her contacts with the Philadelphia airline community to attract a daily service from Philadelphia to Gatwick, at least on a seasonal basis. American being the resident hub-and-spoke operator at Philadelphia would be the only realistic candidate to realise this ambition in my opinion.

Last but not least, Gatwick's current management has demonstrably a far better track record than its BAA counterpart in its final decade of the airport's ownership (2000-2009) as far as attracting blue chip airlines to start / resume services from Gatwick is concerned.

So, never say never.

One could say Delta are only at Gatwick because of JetBlue. Not to detract from Gatwick at all, but they (DL) have a serious track record of retaliation.

United are snipping LHR flights at present so can’t see them adding another London station if this trend continues.

TATL carriers will always have an easier time getting in to Heathrow with open skies . Gatwick will always see more success in attracting services to the likes of China and India where the number of flights are limited. Not to rule anything out, though.

@flygatwick That's just a spotter's wishlist, and nothing wrong with that in principle, BUT you're missing the commercial background and context. Would it be lovely if Gatwick looked like a mini LHR? MAN has the same view, but LGW long haul always needs to be viewed through a LHR lens. What cohort of airlines would simply move to LHR leaving LGW forever if they could vs. those who do well at LGW and are better suited there. The latter set in my view is Air Transat, Westjet (one flight stuck at T4 all alone seems odd IMHO), Norse, BA's Beach Fleet (would they move if they got a third LHR runway?) and TUI. Emirates and Qatar also seem happy to serve LGW in a complimentary fashion to LHR. The Chinese carriers would move out tomorrow if they could get slots, as would Air India and Singapore's A380 retirements drove a need to grow using frequency, they may well get another LHR slot and shift across.
Air Peace and Turkmenistan are bit players barely worth a mention cos they fly heavies. The London market has some strong drivers that will continue to make LGW long haul a challenge to hang onto over the longer term. There is natural churn to LHR over the medium term for anyone not in the second set above.

We appear to have a Qantas A380 visitor at 7.00 tomorrow from Singapore..QF331 ex SYD ..does anyone know why this is here Cruise charter?
Nice to have a different airline and a heavy aircraft here 🙂

FR24 now showing an arrival time or 0517. An interesting arrival. Could possibly be a cruise charter. I know some cruise lines offer half around the world cruises. Either join or leave at Sydney, but the ship
does the whole journey. Although passengers generally just take a normal scheduled flight.
Or are they possibly helping out TUI who have been operating some winter flights to and from Singapore?

It seems to have originated from Sydney and was also on the departure board at SIN ..sure a mystery I also saw a comment on an aviation group I’m in that it is back here on 30/4 ..lovely to have a large visitor here ,a nice clear sky please 🙏
the FR arrival time is strange as it is way behind aBA380 going to LHR from SIN and that is arriving at 6.24 ?

Now showing 0605. Guess it will depend on weather and any possible Middle East diverts.

Yes ,I think that too..I will try and follow it a bit more later ..lovely to see other heavies here ..the A340 operating for MK over the last few weeks has been enjoyed

Emirates is using 777 on ek11/12 so no problem there- will go to stand 558 i think. Dnata handling it?