Gatwick Blog

Figures recently released show Gatwick Airport handled 3,825,500 passengers in August, an increase of 132,500 when compared to August 2010.

Contributing to what was a 3.6% year on year increase was a massive 11.7% growth in European scheduled passengers. Northern Atlantic passenger numbers were up by 4.9%, although, other long-haul services saw passengers drop by 9.3%

In a rolling 12-month period – September 2010 to August 2011, passenger numbers increased by 4.6% when compared to September 2009 to August 2010 – great news for the new owners of Gatwick.

The marathon task of resurfacing the runway at Gatwick is set to begin next March after the airport announced the resurfacing contract had been awarded to civil engineering contractor VolkerFitzpatrick.

At 400,000m2 – the area of 100 football pitches – the runway’s surface will require approximately 65,000 tonnes of asphalt.

As the world’s busiest single runway airport, handling up to 53 flights per hour, work will be carried out during the night with about 130 metres of runway being resurfaced at a time. In addition to resurfacing, the runway’s drainage will be updated and the runway and taxiway lights will be replaced at the same time

Gatwick witnessed a 5.9% increase in passenger numbers last month.

Figures recently released show that more than 3.6 million passengers passed through the airport in July 2011 – 201,300 more passengers than July 2010. This is a continuation of an upward trend in passengers at Gatwick as, in a rolling 12-month period, passenger numbers have increased by 4% on the previous 12 months.

A 14.1% increase in the low cost carrier European schedule helped fuel the increase, as did an increase in load factors from 84.5% to 86.8% .

The future looks bright for Gatwick following Air Asia X’s announcement that it will switch operations from Stansted to Gatwick in October 2011.

Gatwick flights were temporarily grounded yesterday after a construction worker found a suspected Second World War hand grenade on the lower ring road.

The area was cordoned off and a controlled explosion was carried out by the Explosive Ordnance Division.