Gatwick-3
 

At the moment air travel is at an all time low owing to the pandemic. This situation will pass, although it will take some time. In time Heathrow slots will once again
become scarce and very expensive. For some airlines, who have recently moved to Heathrow from Gatwick, these higher costs will not be sustainable in the longer term
or fit with their business models. I cannot see the big players at Heathrow allowing all recent new entrants to remain without oppostion. Leisure and holiday travel will recover more quickly than business travel with the former being more price sensitive.
In my non expert view within two to three years (as medical treatments and vaccines come online) air travel will bounce back and Gatwick will recover.
Up until the beginning of the pandemic Gatwick was handling 45million passengers a year. No way can Heathrow absorb all of these in the longer term. I believe Runway 3 is further away than ever
(or maybe gone for good).
I am confident that by 2023/2024 Gatwick will again be attracting a wide range of airlines who wish to fly to London or who need to expand their London operations. I also believe British Airways will once again operate a
significant base at Gatwick. In recent times right up to the pandemic British Airways was operating a profitable O&D base. Again it may take some time but Gatwick has an affluent catchment, and good transport links. (Especially rail).
The commercial approach of the airport's management has also been praised by the leadership of BA compared to that of Heathrow.
Yes, things may be gloomy at the moment, but things will improve.

Virgin Atlantic
 

An interesting read regarding VS and their relationship with LGW. Sounds like a return hasn't been ruled out after all, even if not immediate. Hopefully some good news for Gatwick.

https://simpleflying.com/virgin-atla...atwick-return/

Gatwick expecting to handle 100 flights a day by mid December

Where are these 100 flights going to go, apart from UK domestic + other places the Queen owns ?
So many countries in Europe and around the world seem to be saying either "PCR paperwork requried for entry" or even "our citizens or those with a residency card only", never mind the requirements to do 2 weeks quarantine on arriving from the UK, that I'm wondering what's left to operate...

I doubt most people will bother about U.K. quarantine requirements.

- note the emphasis on *from*

Had a stab EZY App at Canaries, lots of flights & Geneva up to x5 day for skiing, neither warned about PCR tests required for entry but other European distinations did.

Sun Express has a flight on sale Lgw to Antalya, from June it is daily. Is this their first scheduled operation from Lgw? I would not be surprised if there is not more to come from them.

pabely

Some EU nations are attempting to put off their citizens from going to Switzerland to ski due to the risks. For U.K. residents a period of quarantine would follow.

https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/pressur...sorts/46199694

Supposedly BA have requested slots to do thrice daily Manchester flights from Gatwick in S21.

Slot sitter perhaps ? MAN-LGW looks more credible as a route in the press than just flying LHR-LGW 3x daily...

I wonder if they're also hoping to capture connecting traffic to leisure flights with VS flying somewhat trimmed back from Manchester going forward. Particularly the likes of Vegas, LA etc

LGW-MAN lost money with 12 based long haul B777s flying out of Gatters, no chance of doing better a based fleet of less than half that size, it's almost all point to point traffic. Thrice daily means 2/3 of the services connect to nothing.
Worth remembering applying for slots doesn't mean it will happen, slots are quite often applied for and never operated .

LTNman

It's about showing face, I think a few will travel anyhow and are happy with the 14 days on way back.

Skipness One Foxtrot

I think the poster was referring to CONNECTING out of Manchester not flying down to LGW.

Cathay Pacific
 

Some possibly good news for Gatwick. Just spoken with CX teams in the London office and they have stated that Cathay will be returning to LGW, and that the airline has not withdrawn permanently from the airport, contrary to some media reporting. In the agent's own words "We know how popular Gatwick has been for us and it is our plan to return". Understandably, he was unable to give me a definitive date as to when CX will return to LGW, presumably once all 5 LHR sectors are back online, but at least this gives some sort of clarity for the future of Cathay at Gatwick, and the fact that LGW has, at least prior COVID, worked very well for them. It'll be nice to see the A350 back at LGW soon.

The decision to return to LGW won't be made close to anyone in the London office. I used to get swept up in this sort of thing when I was a kid, for example United flew GLA-IAD with the B767 and Sales and Marketing were 100% supporting the service when rumours began it was being dropped, they said all the right things and were taking bookings for the summer. Almost the very next day the route was canned because the finance team stateside had reviewed the numbers and could serve the Scottish market by using British Midland as a feed via LHR. The aircraft was redeployed. It broke my wee heart but perhaps explains my cynicsim.
Cathay will not lose a significant volume of the current LGW market by serving London out of LHR only. Very few big spenders will take another route to HKG via LGW rather than use BA/CX out of LHR. Hence from a revenue and resource point of view, they'll reinstate LHR x 5 daily then likely review LGW. But that's, IMHO, not "soon" and Cathay are in retreat from Europe, with the double whammy of COVID and the CCP tightening their grip in Hong Kong leading to civil disorder. 6 daily London isn't going to be viable for a while I suspect.

Local sales and marketing will always put the best possible spin to build confidence in market, commerical reality may not agree when head office gets involved.

LGW would do best expanding the Wizz operation enticing them from Luton.

davidjohnson6

There's a fairly large EZY ramp up around the 16/17 December, and BA long haul returns next week with up to 7 flights a day on some days. Extra TUI flights to the Canaries and Aruba (previously Summer only) begin around the 16/17 too. All looks fairly temporary though, January is looking very quiet. Worth remembering January to early February is the quietest time of the year for Gatwick and most other UK airports anyway.

The positive news is that although only a handful of passenger flights have been operating (between 13 and 31 per day), outbound load factors since the lifting of the travel ban have been the highest since March. Only one flight yesterday departed less than 50% full.

Navpi

They don't need enticing, they need slots. It seems on odd business that LGW doesn't have control of this.