London Gatwick’s claim to fame has always been as the world’s busiest single-runway airport but, assuming recent approvals for a second runway are not appealed, it may finally be losing that status.
Looking at the airport’s growth data, a second runway will be very necessary by the time it is operational (expected to be in the 2030s).
Summer capacity constraints frustrate growth at London Gatwick
As the chart below highlights, there has been little growth in the number of scheduled departing flights from the airport since 2019. In fact, there has been a slight reduction as some changes in airline networks have resulted in fewer flights. 88,445 flights were planned for the summer of 2019; fast-forward to this summer and the frequency is 85,476. However, this reduction of 2,969 departing flights for the season works out to around 14 fewer flights a day, hardly a significant change.
Not surprisingly for an airport built on a base of leisure traffic to Europe, the European market remains the largest destination region. It accounts for 87% of all flights, a percentage share that has changed very little since 2019, although the mix of countries has slightly changed. Spain remains the largest country market - one in five flights from Gatwick go to Spain - and is still three times larger than Greece, the second largest market. Greece has been one of the airport’s most significant growth markets, rising from fifth place in 2019 to second this year with a 51% increase in frequency.
The USA has been reducing in popularity, and has seen a near 70% reduction in services from Gatwick since 2019. This is the result of a combination of factors impacting the network: Virgin Atlantic relocated its whole operation to London Heathrow, removing 376 flights in one move, while British Airways has dropped over 40% of its 2019 schedule to the US from Gatwick, and Norwegian’s collapse and the loss of around 2,000 flights in Summer 2019 has not helped.
Emergent markets highlight future growth opportunities
In the last few years Gatwick has seen a remarkable increase in services to emergent markets, partly because of scarce capacity at London Heathrow, but also because carriers such as Singapore Airlines have recognised the distinct catchment area that Gatwick can offer.
One of the quiet developments has been in the Chinese market; all of the Big Three Chinese carriers (China Southern, China Eastern, Air China) now operate services and the number of total flights has multiplied by 15 since 2019.
The largest growth region from Gatwick has been North Africa; frequency of flights to Tunisia has tripled, and Egypt has seen a 140% increase in flights since 2019. Frequency to Morocco has also increased by 35% against 2019. However, the number of scheduled flights this summer is lower than in 2025, suggesting perhaps a case of destination wear-out; TUI Airways dropped over 100 flights year-on-year.
Gatwick remains an easyJet stronghold
easyJet holds a strong position at Gatwick, it operates three and a half times more flights than second-placed British Airways and has a 48% share of all departing flights. Two-thirds of flights are operated by low-cost airlines and Ryanair - Europe’s largest airline - is the fifth largest carrier at the airport. Jet2 is in its first summer of operations with around 2,000 flights planned.
Gatwick now has 65 different airlines operating this summer compared to 47 in 2019, which will satisfy the plane spotting community! Amongst the notable additions in the past seven years are Singapore Airlines, Wizzair UK, Air China and China Southern, although the losses of Virgin Atlantic, Aer Lingus and Cathay Pacific prove that there is always network churn in any market.
Looking ahead, there is no doubt that London Gatwick needs a second runway, and with the third runway at London Heathrow still questionable (despite the most recent approvals), airlines will be queuing up to secure slots at their preferred times of day. Let’s just hope that with new airlines and routes in place in the coming years, the new services operate as quietly as they can!
