Earlier this week, London Gatwick celebrated its 65th birthday, and within this, there have been some major improvements off the back of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The latest data from analytics firm Cirium shows that the airport can celebrate its 65th birthday in style with a huge post-pandemic boom in flights.
Without further ado, let’s get into it…
London Gatwick’s Numbers Have Improved Drastically…
This June, London Gatwick Airport is scheduled to see around 12,281 departures, which amounts to around 3.2 million seats.
Such a figure is just 5% short of June 2019 levels, but the airport is recovering faster than the UK average, which currently sees departures down 11% this month vs June 2019.
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They are in the #2 spot for the UK’s busiest airports and are just behind London Heathrow. Scheduled flights in the airport will head to 184, which is down from 208 in June 2019.
From the image above, we can see the projected annual departures for London Gatwick in comparison to the COVID-19 period, as well as in previous years.
What it shows is that the airport’s return to normal levels has been very sharp, off the back of the very busy Summer 2022 season and the projected-to-be-busy Summer 2023 season as well.
To finish the year at over 130,000 departures annually will be a good step for the airport to return to peak pre-COVID numbers by next year at least.
What remains clear is that London Gatwick is on a good path at the moment, and can look back on its 65th Birthday with significant celebrations and mark a milestone in the continuation of hard work that has been exercised in getting back to this point.
