Despite the loss of key business routes and uncertainty over its impending sale, Gatwick is looking to the future. Michelle Mannion reports.

These aren’t easy times for Gatwick. After the exodus to Heathrow caused by the Open Skies agreement, the airport is seeing yet more of its key transatlantic business routes being pulled – British Airways dropped its JFK service this month only a year after reinstating it.

With Delta and Continental having dropped their New York routes last year, and budget airline Zoom going bust, it leaves the UK’s second-busiest airport with no direct route to the Big Apple’s main hub. Throw into the mix the pressure caused by the global slump in travel – passenger numbers are down to about 32 million a year, from a peak of more than 35 million in 2007 – as well as the uncertainty caused by the airport’s forthcoming sale, and the heady days of 1987, when Gatwick overtook JFK as the world’s second-busiest airport, seem ever further away.

It shouldn’t have to be this way – with an affluent catchment area, great rail links (see panel, page 30) and many multinationals in a 50km radius, the Sussex facility enjoys numerous advantages. It is also seen by many as offering a more pleasurable flying experience. As David Brewer, development director at the airport, says: “The feedback we get from a lot of our passengers is that they would rather fly from Gatwick because it has a certain warmth and there is a perception that it’s an easier airport to travel from.”

To get back into fighting position, Gatwick has put in place an ambitious redevelopment strategy costing almost £1 billion. The programme, which started last year and continues until 2013, aims to make the airport fit for purpose in what is a very different aviation industry to when it was built. “The South Terminal is 50 years old and the North Terminal is 21 years old or thereabouts,” Brewer explains. “Roll the clock back even 21 years and we didn’t have things like the low-cost airlines, so there’s been a huge amount of change in terms of the business model of airlines and the expectations of passengers.”

Work is well under way. In the North Terminal, home to BA, the plan is to boost capacity from 12 to 20 million passengers, soaking up travellers from the older South facility. About £133 million is being spent to improve the forecourt, monorail transit system, check-in facilities and short-stay car parking. The transit, which links the South Terminal, where the mainline rail station is located, to the North, came out of service last month so that a new station could be built and the monorail replaced. It is expected to be back in operation next August, with a bus service running in the meantime.

Check-in facilities will be extended, with 28 new desks, bringing the total to 156, as well as more passenger circulation space and better way-finding. A new multi-storey short-stay car park is due to be completed by April 2011, and improvements are also being made to the security screening areas.

In the South Terminal, work is going on to upgrade what Brewer says had become a “congested and dated” facility. A new forecourt building, due to be finished by May 2012, will make it easier for passengers to get from the short-stay car park to the terminal. The check-in concourse is being freshened up, while work has started on a new baggage system. “The current one is old and doesn’t meet the requirements of the new check-in methodology,” Brewer says.

“Increasingly, passengers expect to be able to check in online and drop their bags when they get to the airport, and the system we’ve got doesn’t meet that expectation.” He describes carrying out the work, which will run until December 2012, as “a bit like a Chinese jigsaw”, with 19 different phases. He cites the problems Heathrow’s Terminal 5 had when introducing its baggage system as a reason for doing the work in a phased fashion.

On the airfield, projects include redeveloping piers one and two in the South Terminal to ensure the airport can serve its mix of long-haul leisure, European and long-haul charter, and scheduled low-cost European operations. Towards 2013, work will start on new pier-served capacity for the North, which may require a second passenger bridge over a live taxiway (Gatwick is one of the only airports to have one of these – see main picture). Brewer doesn’t expect the airport to be able to operate flights with A380 aircraft until about 2016.

Of course, all these changes are subject to agreement by the new owners, whoever they may be. In March, the Competition Commission confirmed that Gatwick would have to be sold. Brewer says BAA is “having an ongoing dialogue with a number of potential bidders”. Gatwick has already been removed from Worldpoints, BAA’s loyalty programme.

Brewer doesn’t think the sale will have a big effect on the redevelopment work. “That would be a decision for the new owners, but the expectation is that it wouldn’t have a significant impact because the programme has been heavily consulted on with passengers and airline groups. It’s also built into the regulatory process that the Civil Aviation Authority operates, so the CAA would expect that any new owner would continue to invest appropriately in facilities,” he says.

So for the meantime it’s business as usual – although it’s a very different business for Gatwick than a few years ago. While in late 2007 BA was the dominant airline, accounting for 25 per cent of its slots, it has since reduced its services considerably – some of the latest to go include Barcelona and Krakow, the carrier choosing to add more long-haul leisure destinations. When asked if it sees Gatwick as more of a leisure hub, a BA spokeswoman said it “continues to have a strong business market on many of our European routes”.

In contrast, Easyjet has strengthened its foothold and is now the airport’s biggest carrier, serving 75 destinations, including several European business routes. Having recently announced plans to reduce its services at London Luton by 20 per cent, the budget airline’s portfolio at Gatwick could increase still further, but at the time of going to press it was unable to confirm whether any flights would be transferred.

Flybe also has a big presence, operating a range of domestic routes, including Leeds – the only air link to London for the city since Bmi pulled its Heathrow service in March. (Flybe is also adding a business-friendly 7am Leeds-Gatwick flight from March 28 to June 30 next year.) This has helped Gatwick become the only BAA airport to grow its domestic market in the past year, with services rising by 1.2 per cent in August this year compared with the same month in 2008. Flybe’s other routes include Dusseldorf, which it added in June.

Meanwhile, Aer Lingus made Gatwick its only base outside Dublin and Belfast in April, operating routes to Dublin, Munich, Vienna, Faro, Vilnius and Zurich, and adding Bucharest, Eindhoven and Warsaw on October 25. This has had a big part to play in increasing the airport’s scheduled European traffic by 5.6 per cent in August, compared with the same time last year.

One reason low-cost airlines are choosing Gatwick is its fees. Brewer says: “At the moment we are one of the cheapest mainstream airports to fly from in terms of the charges we make to airlines, and even after the investment programme it will remain so, with charges of about £7 per passenger by 2013. In comparison, I think Heathrow’s will be about £17 by 2013.”

This may go some way to reducing the impact of the drop in transatlantic services. As well as the JFK flights, other losses include US Airways’ Philadelphia route, Delta’s services to Cincinnati, and Continental’s Houston flights. One of the key business services still operating is Virgin Atlantic’s Las Vegas route. When asked if the airline intended to keep it, a spokeswoman said: “Absolutely, it’s a very popular service among our travellers.” But she added: “We believe the airport is a leisure hub, not a business one, so we are more likely to expand our leisure flights.” Still, Virgin is investing in its lounge facilities, with “a wonderfully improved Clubhouse” under construction and due to reopen in December.

While the loss of such services is a big blow, Brewer maintains: “There are still transatlantic routes operating [business ones include Delta’s Atlanta service] so it’s possible for people for whom Gatwick is the airport of choice to fly from here, and we would hope that as we come out of the recession, demand recovers and we get some of those services back.”

Who flies from Gatwick?

N = North Terminal; S = South Terminal

Adria Airways (N); Air Baltic (S); Air Comet (N); Air Europa (S); Air Malta (S); Air Namibia (N); Air Transat (S); Aer Lingus (S); Bmi (S); British Airways (N); Brussels Airlines (N); Croatia Airlines (S); Delta Air Lines (N); Easyjet (N and S); Emirates (N); Estonian Air (S); Flybe (S); Iceland Express (S); Malev (N); Mexicana (S); Monarch Airlines (S); Norwegian (S); Qatar Airways (N); Rossiya Airlines (S); Ryanair (S); SAS (S); TAP Portugal (S); US Airways (S); Virgin Atlantic (S).

Getting there

By train

  • Gatwick Express runs non-stop trains from London Victoria to Gatwick every 15 minutes, taking about half an hour. A standard return costs £28.80. Visit gatwickexpress.com
  • Southern runs frequent Victoria-Gatwick services, with journeys also taking about half an hour. An open return costs from £23.80. Visit southernrailway.com
  • First Capital Connect operates regular trains from London Bridge and St Pancras International, with journeys of about 30 and 45 minutes respectively. Return tickets start from £15.80. Visit firstcapitalconnect.co.uk
  • Gatwick rail station is at the South Terminal. While the monorail that links it to the North Terminal is being refurbished, a bus service runs every three minutes from 4am to 6pm and every six minutes at night. Allow 20 minutes for the transfer.

By road

  • Gatwick is located just north of Crawley, 45km south of London. It is linked directly to the M23 at Junction 9 and to the A23 London-Brighton road, and is ten minutes’ drive from Junction 7 of the M25. Postcodes for satnav systems are RH6 0NP for the South Terminal and RH6 0PJ for the North.

Parking

  • The short-stay NCP car parks for each terminal are a few minutes’ walk from check-in. They cost £14.50 for 12 hours or £21 for 24 hours, but there are also special pre-book rates for stays of a day or more. There is also a fast-track service in each car park offering reserved covered spaces close to the exits (£22.40 for 12 hours or £27.80 for 24 hours). Visit gatwickairport.com
  • NCP also runs a valet parking service from designated drop-off points on the terminal forecourts. Online rates start from £31.40 for the first day and an extra £9 for each subsequent day.
  • For longer trips, Long Stay South Terminal (formerly Parking Express) is about five minutes’ drive from the terminal, with a courtesy coach running every ten minutes. Long Stay North (formerly Gatwick NCP Flightpath) runs a free coach service every ten minutes, with the transfer also taking about ten minutes. The drive-up rate for both car parks is £9 per day, with discounts if you book online.
  • Another option is Long Stay Plus (formerly Park Plus), which serves the South Terminal and can be used for stays of three or more days. Vehicles are parked by staff and a free coach transfer service runs every ten minutes, taking two to three minutes. Rates start from £24 for three days. Summer Special Parking – which, confusingly, operates year-round – is located by the North Terminal roundabout and can be used for trips of three days or more. Similarly, you drop your keys off so that staff can park your car, and then a coach will transfer you to either terminal, with the service running every 20 minutes and the journey taking ten minutes. Prices start from £23.50 for three days.
  • Off-site car parking options include Airparks (formerly BCP Gatwick), located about 5km from the airport. It offers a free shuttle service every 15 minutes with transfers taking ten minutes. Two days’ parking in October started from £17.95 online. It also offers valet services. Visit parkbcp.co.uk