And yet pre COVID Gatwick handled MORE UK passengers going and returning than Heathrow - your reference to use North terminal included . The fact much most were point to point should not be under estimated.

And its become quite evident the US route domination at Heathrow has become a serous risk to that airports portfolio in these times !

Compared to the other European Hubs including Amsterdam/Frankfurt and Roissy, that reliance and rapid loss of the North Atlantic has been devastating has it not ?

Actually we agree. LGW has always been more about Brits going on holiday than international connections, was ever thus. But as for "devestating", I am unclear of your point as LGW took a much bigger hit than LHR with COVID.

There are actually 2 other reasons at play as to why airlines move to Lhr from Lgw:
1. Higher yield. That much vaunted reason pushed as a success story actually means higher fares for us, especially at the front end of the plane. Because of this, it actually suits airport/airlines for Lgw to never become successful in long-haul. So Lhr, airlines, frequent flyer programmes, big corporations, they all act together to ensure it is always more attractive to fly from there, for a number of reasons. If you have status with an airline, are you going to miss those perks to go fly from Lgw with another airline, even though the fare might be less?
2. Airlines themselves have an obsession with Lhr, like a snobbish obsession. Think of some of the airlines that have recently moved to Lhr, like Jazeera, Rwandair, some also from Ltn and Stn and ask yourself, what benefit will it be to them? They are not part of an alliance so connecting traffic is not a part of the story. I bet the passenger who would use these airlines would use them whether at Lgw or Lhr. Think of some of the airlines who did move to Lhr and they were no bigger success there, Garuda comes to mind. Remember we all make silly decisions, so do the chief execs at the top of airlines.

I wouldn't say it's a snobbish obsession. Jazeera and Rwandair among others are not competing on their own. They are up against Kuwait Airways, BA, Emirates, Qatar etc. So when people search for flights they will be at a disadvantage offering LGW while the rest all go to LHR. For many abroad, they know LHR has the tube so assume it is easier. Garuda wouldn't make those London flights work regardless of where they flew - its a corrupt, basket case of an airline and is massively reducing in size now reality has caught up with it. And plenty of people will still connect even if the airlines are not in an alliance together. When looking for flights from my home in Sweden, I'm usually always offered routings via LHR with non-partner airlines like SAS connecting to VS or SAS connecting onto Rwandair for example.

As to the point about higher yield, part of that is the perceived better location of LHR. Lots of companies along the M4 for example. I worked in Mayfair and commuted and I tried all airports offering the route I took at the time. LGW, LHR and STN and for me LHR was without a doubt the easiest, cheapest and quickest. After that I didn't even bother looking at LGW because it was too much hassle and the schedules were much more holiday focused leaving earlier or arriving too late, where as at LHR I had a choice of carriers with multiple flights a day so I had flexibility to take an earlier or later flight depending how things went and in the one instance I had problems, it was easy for them to move me to another carrier.

Yes all nicely established, very hard for Lgw to break that down now.

On the other hand there are lots of communities south of the river, and indeed north of London for whom it us much easier to get to LGW by direct train than to get to LHR. Crossrail next year will make quite a difference to reaching LHR from East London.

Maybe I'm being naive, but it would be great to read about actual Gatwick news, airlines and routes rather than the often revisited Gatwick v Heathrow debates.

As I said at the beginning of this thread Gatwick will flourish again but it may take a while. We have to accept LHR and LGW are different. Airlines prefer one to the other.
Both airports have their different strengths and weaknesses.

I find both airports interesting places and enjoy travelling from both. However, I do have a soft spot for London Gatwick as, when I was younger, it was the starting place for many great holidays.
As a family we loved looking in the shops and enjoying the all day breakfast before boarding our flights! Even now, many years later, I still feel excited when using the place!

It was at Gatwick that I first went, as a teenager with friends, to see aircraft close up many years ago. (Anyone else remember how you could actually walk along the roof of one of the piers and watch airline operations really close up!)
I spent many happy summer days watching the airport at work from the great viewing area that used to be on top of the South Terminal. I was never a plane spotter, I just enjoyed watching the goings on and the whole atmosphere.
In some ways it was more interesting then (1970s 1980s early 1990s) with so many more UK airlines and aircraft types! However it is still great in my view.

Just be good to read some more real Gatwick news on here.

I have always been intrigued how many posts the smaller UK airports get on here compared to Heathrow and Gatwick. Although I admire the passion some have for the local airports.

As always just my opinion for what its worth!

Yes, some in particular!

BA318

The actual answer is it costs very little to have a split operation. Handling is outsourced and will be done on a per flight basis (or in the case of Ryanair, on a per passenger basis) so this is negligible. As for facilities - this is the UK, not the USA, no overseas airline owns or leases any facilities here, bar a few lounges at LHR. The only real additional expense would be engineering provision in two locations. Currently Boeing handle engineering for WS at LGW. One would assume they’d need to source a different company at LHR, but this is another very small expense in the grand scheme.

Very few airlines split their operations because very few airlines need to. Once they get enough slots at LHR, there’s no point staying. But the majority of airlines with a sizeable LON operation that migrated from LGW to LHR started with a split operation until they had enough suitable slots. There’s a difference between a split operation to capture different parts of a large market, and a split operation until suitable LHR slots can be obtained for all flights.

LGW recovery
 

vectisman

Here here! I completely agree- and I do hope LGW will be on the road to recovery soon. Would be nice to see some more long haul return to Gatwick in addition to its short haul network. As we all know, JetBlue will be commencing services from LGW to JFK next month, so it'll be welcome seeing New York back on the departure boards again following the cessation of BA and DI on the same route. Also, the upcoming Norse Atlantic venture is one to watch- they had the livery and brand reveal yesterday, so it'll be interesting to see confirmation of the airports they will be using in the near future. London has already been flagged as a key base for the airline for sometime, so no doubt LGW will be up there. Hopefully others will follow- I hope that LGW can retain a good mix of short and long haul just as it did pre-pandemic, as it had been doing well. Slot availability at LHR will continue to grow scarcer going forward as air travel picks up, restrictions further lift and more people get vaccinated, so hopefully LGW stands a good chance at getting some of its lost long haul network back, such as Air China, China Eastern, Cathay Pacific.

If there is a serious risk of defaulting on loans (as opposed to loan covenants) then it sounds like Gatwick as a company was significantly over-leveraged

I think the China/HK routes will be hard to re-instate and unfortunately were only overflow routes for LHR when the times were good.

Relations between China and the UK/USA has deteriorated over the last 12-18 months, and I do not see the high number of Chinese visitors returning for some time to the UK. Foreign relations between China and other countries usually heavily dictates visitor numbers to a country from China, via the propaganda they provide to their citizens.

Chinese students coming to UK universities for studies has been a cash cow for the higher education sector, and the number of students now applying has heavily dropped off, and this will have an impact on the numbers using flights too.

Also with the stricter more authoritarian rule coming into place in Hong Kong, it is likely to have an impact on Brits visiting the city, as it was previously considered ex-British colony with democratic rule, which seems to be disappearing

China Airlines will be an interesting one, if that returns? Despite the name, it actually flies to Taipei in Taiwan which is a fully democratic and highly developed country. (But with a long complicated past that is closely linked to China.) I've used the route several times, on their A350's to Australia and got nothing but praise for the service and experience with them.

The flights have always been 80+% full (but that doesn't mean profitable), and is the only direct link between the UK and Taiwan. However the route was never increased in frequency from when launched, remaining at five return flights a week, which poses a question how successful it was? Unlike where they offered direct daily services to cities like Vienna, Frankfurt and Rome and just before the pandemic the daily route to Amsterdam was upgraded to the 777-300.

gdiddy
Flights from the UK to Taiwan were operated by both China Airlines A350 and EVA with a B77W. As far as I know London is the only city in Europe served by both carriers. Whether China Airlines returns to LGW depends if it manages to get slots at LHR.

EVA operates via BKK. Both carriers serve AMS and VIE.

With the Delta variant now causing chaos in parts of China, regional lockdowns over the next few months should be expected. This is bound to have a knock on effect via incoming tourism from China.

In talks with the banks
 

davidjohnson6

I can't quite see it because the loans will have undoubtedly been subject to Parent Company Guarantees, and Vinci and GIP have not issued any warnings that they are in any jeopardy of defaulting. If they predate 2019 when Vinci bought a half-share then they will again undoubtedly have been revised to the new ownership at that time.

It's not quite apparent how they could manage to get to this position without, as described above, being substantially over-leveraged (alias borrowing too much), and/or having paid out too much from reserves as dividends. That doesn't sound quite like Vinci corporate, who commonly have a long term view of things. GIP can be different. I wonder if a difference of opinion has emerged between the two.

I wonder what the loans were for. It's not exactly like they have built a new runway or a new terminal, is it ? Lesser works should normally be paid for mainly out of retained earnings.

There was the Pier 1 rebuild, all 5 gates of it and before that Pier 5 was redeveloped to properly seperate inbound and outbound passengers without sliding doors. They've also just rebuilt the A380 gate on 555.

And Pier 6 is being extended - or at least it was until Covid came and the works have since stopped, leaving a large, now weed-ridden mess in the middle of the airfield.

Airports are expensive. When you’re down to 23 passengers a day in the height of lockdown, I’m not sure why anybody is surprised.

Pier 6 extension is small-scale in the general order of things, and being undertaken by one of the airports' two owners should not have required them to go out and get loans for its construction; that should have been able to come from existing earnings and not required them to go for a financial loan for it.

Regarding operating expenses for the last 18 months, some businesses have been better than others at reducing their outgoings.

Given that it meant the A380 stand had to be moved to Pier 5, which required the resurfacing of the taxiways leading to it and the stand itself to be completely rebuilt, plus the rerouting of an entire taxiway around the new extension, plus the extension itself, it’s not exactly a small and inexpensive project.

Aside from closing entirely, I’m also not sure what more you expected Gatwick to do? All but about 4 stands were completely closed at the height, everything else was switched off. The majority of infrastructure is still switched off. At the current traffic levels, Gatwick is going to struggle to pass 10 million passengers this year, which will mean two years at less than 25% of 2019 figures, and around 70 million fewer passengers than expected over that period. That’s a lot of lost revenue.

When you put it like that, they should have said to Emirates they'd prefer them to use B77Ws.
There's no business case for this for one stand for one airline for an aircraft they've stopped building.

Possibly, but you could say the same for any airport that’s been modified to handle the A380. Does LHR T3 need six A380 capable stands? Did the 340-344 stands need to be reconfigured? The answer was no even pre-Covid.

Emirates bring a huge amount of revenue to an airport, both directly and indirectly. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

SOF - don’t forget EK 380 was three flights daily at LGW so maybe not as ridiculous as you suggest to build the new EK stand at LGW. GLA modified a stand for the 380 for one flight a day for only 6 months a year.

I may be wrong but Im sure some time ago GAL thought (crazy in my view) that QR may bring the A380 to LGW hence strengthening the case for new 380 stand on pier 5

Pier 6 at LHR has 4 A380 stands but they're not exclusively used for the Super heavy. They did have SQ, QF and two EK departures back pre T2 opening so the additional 2 stands were contingency as BA also came to use A380s out of T3. LGW had one A380 stand on Pier 6 for their one operator, but I think Gate 110 was part of the Pier 6 extension so change was needed?

Stand 110 and 111 were used by other aircraft too. As you say with the pier 6 extension the 109/110/111 end of the pier was impacted so if GAL wanted an A380 stand they had to invest anyway in upgrading an existing stand.

The 340-344 stands were reconfigured long before BA showed up with the A380. Even 301 was rarely used for the A380 once Singapore moved to T2. Perhaps the A380 stands at T4 would’ve been a better example of the point I was trying to make.

110 at LGW was ideal as it was the closest stand (NT - no ST stands would’ve been suitable without a significant rework of that part of the airfield) to the existing infrastructure that allowed LGW to be used as a diversion airport for the A380, which was basically the standby runway and parallel taxiway, as well as the closest stand to the taxiway next to the tower. It was a bit of a nightmare on the inside as the stand it replaced was designed for 150 passengers, not 500+, not to mention it was a 10 minute walk from the departure lounge and, most importantly for EK, their business class lounge. The stand did have parking for two smaller aircraft (110L/R) but even 111 couldn’t be used for a flight departing at a similar time due to the boarding gate congestion.

The new stand (558) is now mostly used as two stands (557/559) by narrow bodies. This was how it was used pre-Covid for based EZY aircraft that were arriving after the last A380 departure in the evening and/or leaving before the first A380 arrival in the morning. Great when it works, not great when every morning departure had a slot and the stand/s were still occupied when the A380 arrived

The EK A380 will be back at Gatwick. There are a lot of A380 capable stands around the world which will never see an A380 again.

772

I too am intrigued about VS. The CEO was quoted towards the end of last year that a return to LGW had not been completely ruled out (hence the decision to retain their slots at the airport). However, he did make clear that LGW operations would not be reinstated in the short term, given the current situation, and the recent drive to reduce losses and operational costs by consolidating London operations at LHR. That said, the recent expansion of leisure flying by the airline in the Caribbean including the return to UVF might be the reason why VS' return to LGW is being flagged up again. After all, it was the leisure network that has historically been based at LGW, so who knows. Virgin might also be watching JetBlue's upcoming entrance to LGW, in addition to Norse Atlantic, although I suspect this is relatively minor in the bigger scheme of things. I suspect a return to Gatwick will become clearer once slot utilisation rules change, in which case VS will be forced to either use them or lose them permanently. It would be nice to have them back at LGW.

Always the possibility that VIR sell some Heathrow slots to raise some much needed money and move those flights back to little old Gatwick….

Looks like a few BA shorthaul could be on the cards for winter 21…I looked on BAwebsite and there are flights to TFS and ACE and FAO showing in November ..hopefully better news for LGW🙏

How much are LHR slots worth at the moment? They have slots they aren't using at LHR/LGW which other airlines would like to have - can't go on indefinitely.

all LGW SH is selling on ba,com as ‘normal’ will all be moved up the road for winter, in time unfortunately

Is the Virgin hangar at LGW closed permanently now? What about the North Terminal Clubhouse? Has it been stripped out for re-use yet?
LGW could well be cheaper to operate from for some of the Beach Fleet routes but the core clientele that make the money like their lounges and Virgin experience, so the Clubhouse would likely need some proper re-investment. It may also depend on how the inevitable churn on LHR slots means VS can get hold of some more. They may also be using the albeit minor threat of Gatwick to apply pressure on HAL not to crank fees up again.

Would the clubhouse need investment? VS only moved over to the North in January 2017 ( I think) BA’s S terminal lounges are lovely so would expect the same from VS ones in the North still.

I don’t know but would doubt anything has been done to it since VS left, no other airline would have a use for it and VS and GAL hinting (however likely/ unlikely) at a return I would think it would just be mothballed for now

I could be wrong but I read the space had been cleared to be re-used, hence they'll need to invest to put it all back, Cos otherwise they've been paying rent on the space when they have no flights operating or planned which given the cash situation seems unwise, unless they were locked into a long term lease. Anyone know?

FR launching AGP-LGW 6x weekly at the end of October. AGP based a/c.

I wonder if this is testing the waters for further expansion.

Skipness One Foxtrot

oh, ok fair enough. Interesting if it has been cleared for reuse, not sure what use, can’t see any need for more retail or other lounges for a long time and, (I don’t see it happening) but GAL are quick to talk up a VS return so to clear their lounges out is an interesting move.

I too would be Interested to know