Gatwick Airport area in about 1925, with airport boundary in green. Gatwick Manor is at the northwest end of the racecourse. The modern runway runs roughly from the racecourse to the lane junction at Hydefield Farm, southeast ofCharlwood.
1241: First record of the name "Gatwick" (as "Gatwik"). Gatwick was amanor in the parish ofCharlwood, a village in Surrey.[1] Gatwick manor house (not the same as the present Gatwick Manor Hotel) was on the site of today's airport, on the northern edge of the North Terminal's aircraft taxiing area; until the 19th century, it was owned by the De Gatwick family.[2] Its name derives from theOld Englishgāt (goat) andwīc (dairy farm); i.e. "goat farm".[3]
1890: The descendants of the original owners sold the area to the newly established Gatwick Race Course Company.
1891: The new owners opened aracecourse adjacent to the London-Brighton railway, to replace a racecourse inCroydon, anda dedicated station included sidings forhorse boxes, and named Gatwick Racecourse Station.[2][4] The course hostedsteeplechases andflat races. During its time as a racecourse, many days were cancelled due to fog, fog would later continue to cause problems for the airport including the fatal crash involving Turkish Prime Minister's plane in 1959.[5]
1916, 1917, 1918: TheGrand National was run at Gatwick during theFirst World War.[2] The Gatwick Golf Club disappeared following the end of the First World War.[6]
Late 1920s: Land adjacent to the racecourse (at Hunts Green Farm, alongTinsley Green Lane) was used as anaerodrome. The Hunts Green farmhouse on the land used for the aerodrome was converted into a clubhouse and terminal.[4]
November 1928: From then, Dominion Aircraft Limited based itsAvro 504 G-AACX at Gatwick.[7]
1 August 1930: Ronald Waters, manager of Home Counties Aircraft Service (based atPenshurst Airfield inKent), who had come into possession of Gatwick Aerodrome, got a licence for it.[7] He founded the Surrey Aero Club there.[8][9][10][11]
2–3 August 1930: Flying began with pleasure flights for the local population in Avro 504s of Waters's Surrey Aero Club.
1932: The Redwing Aircraft Company bought the aerodrome, and operated a flying school; it was also used for pilots flying in for races.
1933: TheAir Ministry approved commercial flights from Gatwick.
September 1933: A. M. (Morris) Jackaman, who owned several light aircraft, bought the aerodrome for £13,500. He had bold ideas for its future, such as expanding it to make it suitable to use as a relief aerodrome forLondon (Croydon) Airport and providing a regular service toParis usingde Havilland DH.84 Dragon aircraft. He overcame resistance from theAir Ministry, which was concerned about the cost of draining the clayey land and diverting theRiver Mole.
1934: Jackaman oversaw Gatwick's transition to a public aerodrome, licensed for non-private flights, and planned a proper terminal building linked to a new railway station on the adjacentBrighton Main Line.[12] He formed a new airport company, Airports Limited.Hillman's Airways became Gatwick's first commercial airline operator, beginning scheduled services from the airport toBelfast and Paris.
1935: A new airline,Allied British Airways, was formed with the merger of Hillman's Airways,United Airways andSpartan Air Lines. The new carrier, which later shortened its name to British Airways, became Gatwick's principal operator.[2]Dorking and HorleyRural District Council was concerned about possible compensation claims from local residents and the threat of facing liability for flying accidents, and it "could see no benefit" to allowing further development of the aerodrome.[12][14]
6 July 1935: The aerodrome closed temporarily for renovations, which included building the "Beehive", the world's first circular terminal building.
September 1935: Tinsley Greenstation opened on time, served by two trains per hour on theVictoria-Brighton line.
30 September 1935:Tinsley Green station opened 0.85 mi (1.37 km) south of the present Gatwick station.
October 1935: The contracted opening date, but it was not met, partly because of drainage problems.
17 May 1936: The first scheduled flight departed from the Beehive terminal at 1:30 pm, bound forParis Le Bourget.Jersey Airways operated this flight with aDH.86 under contract toBritish Airways Ltd., whoselivery the aircraft wore. The airfare was £4 5s (including afirst-class rail ticket fromLondon Victoria Station), and there were up to three flights a day.[2][15] Later the same day, British Airways Ltd. introduced another new scheduled service from Gatwick toMalmö, which routed viaAmsterdam,Hamburg andCopenhagen. Total travelling time between Gatwick and Malmö was six-and-a-half hours.[15]
25 May 1936: British Airways Ltd. andSouthern Railway jointly launched scheduled air services between Gatwick and theIsle of Wight.[15]
1 June 1936: Tinsley Green station was renamed "Gatwick Airport".[16]
6 June 1936: The airport was officially reopened by theSecretary of State for Air,Lord Swinton. It featured four grass landing strips which were linked to the terminal area by twoconcretetaxiways, one each for arriving and departing aircraft respectively.[17] The Beehive, the new terminal, was officially opened the same day. The Beehive was designed byFrank Hoar and incorporated several novel features, including a subway to the railway station at Tinsley Green which allowed passengers to travel from Victoria Station to the aircraft without stepping outside (with a transfer time from train to plane of as little as 20 minutes[12][18]).Air Travel Ltd (a company specialising in aircraft and engine overhauls which had relocated to Gatwick fromPenshurst) moved into the new airport's No. 1hangar.[19][20][21]
July 1936: British Airways Ltd. inaugurated regular night mail flights linking Gatwick withCologne andHanover.[22]
September and November 1936: Two fatal accidents happened, raising questions about the airport's safety.[23][24][25] The area was foggy, and its clay soil drained poorly; this caused the new subway to flood after rain.
17 February 1937: Gatwick was declared unserviceable due to waterlogging following repeated, heavy rainfalls. Because of this tendency to flood, and because longer landing strips were needed, the pre-war British Airways moved toCroydon Airport.[26] Gatwick returned to private flying, and was used as aRoyal Air Force (RAF) flying school.[2]
1 September 1939: No. 19 E&RFTS ended its activities at Gatwick.[29]
3 September 1939: Following thedeclaration of war on Germany, all civilian flying at Gatwick and elsewhere in the UK stopped. As a consequence, civilaircraft maintenance and manufacturing activities at the airport stopped as well.[31] This resulted in the airport being requisitioned by the Air Ministry,[2] and becoming a base for RAFnight-fighters and anArmy co-operation squadron during World War II (primarily for repairs and maintenance and as an alternative toRAF Kenley in the event that Kenley was rendered inoperable by enemy action).[32][29]
December 1939: The operations manager of British Airways Ltd., which had begun the process of merging withImperial Airways to formBritish Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC), inspected Gatwick to assess its suitability as a base for the combined operations of the merged airline.[29]
1940: BOAC maintenance personnel began overhaulingArmstrong Whitworth Ensigns and other aircraft types at Gatwick.[29] Horse racing at Gatwick ended and never restarted.
1946: The airport was officially decommissioned on 31 August,[29] but theMinistry of Transport and Civil Aviation continued operating it as a civil airfield (initially for a six-month trial period).[2] Airwork provided maintenance at Gatwick and other charter airlines, flying war-surplus aircraft, began using the airport despite its persistent drainage problem. Most commercial air services were cargo flights.Bond Air Services was one of the first cargo charter airlines to move to Gatwick; it began flying convertedHalifax bombers from the airport.[33]
November 1946: Customs facilities began being provided at Gatwick.
March 1947:Luton-basedHunting Air Transport established a base at Gatwick. It became the airport's first operator of post-World War II British-designed aircraft following delivery of ade Havilland Dove and twoVickers Vikings. (Hunting moved its base toBovingdon soon after it had taken delivery of the Vikings.)[34]
January 1948: Airwork converted war-surplusDouglas Dakota aircraft for civil use at Gatwick, with work being carried out on up to 35 aircraft simultaneously. This included allBritish European Airways (BEA) aircraft, as well as many BOAC,Aer Lingus andKLM aircraft.[34]
November 1948: The airport's owners warned that it might revert to private use by November 1949;Stansted was favoured as London's second airport, and Gatwick's future was unclear.
1949: The third and final Daily Express Air Display was held at Gatwick.[33]
1950: Despite local opposition, theCabinet chose Gatwick as an alternative toHeathrow (then known asLondon Airport). BEA launched a seasonal scheduled service toAlderney in theChannel Islands, which operated for three consecutive summer seasons until 1952. At the time, there were three operational runways. These were aligned South-West–North-East, East–West and South-East–North-West. The first was 4,200 ft (1,300 m) long, 150 ft (46 m) wide and covered insteel mesh; the second was 3,600 ft (1,100 m) long, 150 ft (46 m) wide and covered in steel mesh as well; the third was of the same length and width as the second but was grass-covered.[35][36]
July 1952: TheBritish government confirmed that the airport would be renovated to provide sufficient capacity for an expected doubling of aircraft movements in the London area by 1960 and for aircraft diverted from Heathrow in bad weather.[41]
17 January 1956: The Gatwick Airport Consultative Committee held its first meeting.[42]
1956 to 1958: The airport was closed for the £7.8 million renovation;[2][32][43] during that period, BEA continued using Gatwick for its helicopter operations.[43] The renovations were performed byAlfred McAlpine;[44] they entailed diverting theA23London–Brightontrunk road and theRiver Mole, building a runway across the former racecourse and rebuilding the formerracecourse railway station next to the new terminal.[43] The new, 7,000 ft (2,100 m) concrete runway was the first in Britain to featurehigh-speed turn-offs on to a parallel taxiway.[45] The masterplan for the new airport also provided for subsequent construction of second 7,000 ft (2,100 m) runway, as part of a second phase, northward extension of the airfield.[41]
Late 1950s and after: A number of British contemporary private airlines relocated to Gatwick from rival airports that closed down, closed to commercial air traffic and/or could not accommodate modern aircraft, including large commercialjet aircraft such as theBoeing 707 andDouglas DC-8.[46]
28 May 1958: The original Gatwick railway station (which had been rebuilt) reopened as Gatwick Airport station, and Tinsley Green station was closed.[41]
30 May 1958: The first commercial air service to use the rebuilt airport was operated byTransair with aVickers Viscount carrying troops fromMalta; it landed at 3:45 pm.[2][47][48][49] (The first scheduled air service to use the rebuilt airport was operated by Jersey Airlines with a de Havilland Heron.[7][50])
May–June 1958: Transair became the first airline to establish a base at the new Gatwick.[51]
9 June 1958: Official opening. QueenElizabeth II flew into Gatwick in a de Havilland Heron of theQueen's Flight for the opening. The first "official" flight after the reopening ceremony was a BEA"Pionair" classDC-3 operating acharter forSurrey County Council to Jersey andGuernsey.[43][49] Gatwick was the world's first airport with a direct railway link and the first to combinemainline rail,trunk road facilities and anair terminal building in one unit.[32] It was also one of the first with an enclosedpier-based terminal, which allowed passengers to walk under cover to waiting areas near the aircraft (with only a short walk outdoors).[2] At the time, this comprised a single pier (the central and main pier of what is now the South Terminal) with 11 aircraft stands. Another feature of Gatwick's new air terminal was itsmodular design, permitting subsequent, phased expansion.[49][43]
February 1959: Transair assumed the operation of theAfrican "Safari" low-fare flights from owner Airwork, along with two dedicated Viscount aircraft. This resulted in the service's London terminal moving fromBlackbushe to Gatwick. Airwork ended its manufacturing and large-scale, third party aircraft maintenance activities at Gatwick following completion of a large scheduled servicing and repair contract for RAFF-86 Sabrefighters stationed inWest Germany, which employed 550 at its peak.[54]
Summer 1959: US supplementals Capitol International and ONA began a series of seasonal charter flights carryingAmerican tourists toEurope, which transited Gatwick en route to their final destinations on theContinent.[49]
September 1959:Morton Air Services moved to Gatwick following Croydon Airport's closure.[55]
1 July 1960: Airwork (incorporating Gatwick-based Morton Air Services and Transair,Redhill-basedBristow Helicopters, and Southend-basedAir Charter andChannel Air Bridge) merged withHunting-Clan to formBritish United Airways (BUA). BUA assumed most of its predecessors'fixed-wing aircraft services, becoming Britain's biggest independent (and Gatwick's foremost resident) airline during the 1960s.[52][60] By the end of the decade, it was the airport's leading scheduled operator, with a 44,100 mi (71,000 km) network of short-, medium- and long-haul routes across Europe,Africa andSouth America using contemporaryBAC One-Eleven andVickers VC10 jet aircraft.[61] Despite the rapid expansion of BUA's (and other airlines') scheduled activities at Gatwick, the airport was dominated by non-scheduled services from the early 1960s until the end of the 1980s. Most wereinclusive tour (IT) passenger services provided by a number of British independent operators and their overseas counterparts. This earned the airport its "bucket and spade" nickname.[52][62]
1960 and 1961: Air Couriers built a new engineering base at Gatwick to provide aircraft maintenance services to third parties, including airlines and corporate aircraft owners.[59]Flying Tiger Line,Riddle Airlines andSaturn Airways began operating regular summercharters carrying passengers and cargo between Gatwick, the US, theRepublic of Ireland,Continental Europe andAsia. These services compensated for traffic lost as a result of the collapse of several of Gatwick's resident airlines during that period.[63]
Gatwick in 1961
1961: BUA announced the construction of a new, £585,000 hangar and office complex at Gatwick.[59]
1 April 1961: The airport's designation became "London (Gatwick)", emphasising its status as a London airport. (London Airport became "London (Heathrow)".) Following the agreement with the British government to transfer some flights from Heathrow to improve Gatwick's utilisation, BEA andAir France moved some of their flights toParis (Le Bourget) to Gatwick. BEA also moved some flights to other European destinations to Gatwick.[64][65]
1962: Two additional piers were added to the terminal.[7]
1 May 1963: Non-scheduled operators began implementing theMinistry of Aviation's instruction to transfer all regular charter flights from Heathrow to Gatwick, restricting Heathrow's use for non-scheduled operations to "occasional" charter flights.[66]
26 May 1963: BUA launched "Silver Arrow", a twice-daily combined rail-air service between London and Paris, with a Viscount for the cross-Channel Gatwick–Le Touquet air service.[52][67][68]
The main passenger terminal at Gatwick in 1964 taken from one of the two piers looking SE.
1 January 1964:BEA Helicopters made Gatwick their administrative and engineering base.[70]
1964: Gatwick's original, relatively short late-1950s paved runway was extended by 1,200 ft (370 m) to 8,200 ft (2,500 m) due to new noise rules governing the operation of jet aircraft at airports near (or surrounded by) densely populated urban areas.[2][71]
1965: By now, each of the three piers was nearly 1,000 ft (300 m) long, and the terminal complex had a floor area of 100,000 sq ft (9,300 m2).[2][32]
9 April 1965: a BUAOne-Eleven operated the type's first commercial service from Gatwick toGenoa.[72]
4 January 1966: BUA began Gatwick's first scheduled domesticjet service toGlasgow,Edinburgh and Belfast. The new service, known as "InterJet", made BUA the first UK domestic airline using jet aircraft exclusively.[74][75]
1 April 1966: TheBritish Airports Authority (BAA) came into being; it assumed the management of Gatwick, Heathrow and Stansted. BAA's first chairman, Peter Masefield, unfurled the new BAAstandard on Gatwick's central pier and opened the airport's newgeneral aviation terminal (located north of the passenger terminal), before leaving for Heathrow with a group of officials and journalists aboard aChannel AirwaysHawker Siddeley 748.[76]
Summer 1966 and after: Busy summer weekends featured frequent arrivals and departures throughout the night as there were nonight flying restrictions at Gatwick at the time. These were mainly passenger charter flights toMediterranean resorts, although some were cargo charters to the Channel Islands and special, seasonal low-fare scheduled services flown byIberia,SAS andSwissair. As many airlines had begun phasing out their obsolete piston airliners, a growing number of these night flights were operated by first and second generation jet aircraft powered by noisyturbojet or low-bypassturbofan engines.[77]
1966–67 fiscal year:[nb 4] BAA began constructing a new, five-story office complex on top of the main terminal building.[76]
1967: Gatwick's last car ferry flight flew, followingBritish Air Ferries' decision to withdraw the service it inherited from Silver City Airways when it merged with Channel Air Bridge in 1963 to formBritish United Air Ferries.[40]
May 1967:Green Line Coaches launched an hourly inter-airport express coach service between Gatwick and Heathrow.[78]
14 and 15 September 1968: Torrential rains associated with thunderstorms in the Gatwick area caused the River Mole to burst its banks. This resulted in the worst recorded flooding in the area for 100 years, which necessitated Gatwick Airport's complete closure for several hours.[79][80]
25 June 1969: Westward Airways began the first inter-airport air shuttle between Gatwick and Heathrow usingBritten-Norman Islanders. The airline's nine-seater aircraft plied this route six times a day each way. The flying time was 15 minutes (compared with an average surface travelling time of one-and-a-half hours). Fares charged were £4 one-way.[82][83][84]
1970: A second 875-foot (267 m) extension of Gatwick's runway was completed, bringing it to 9,075 ft (2,766 m) and allowing non-stop jet flights to theUS east coast with a fullpayload and fullrange and payload operations by British United Airways and Caledonian AirwaysBAC One-Eleven 500s.[2][85]BEA Airtours made Gatwick their base.[86]
May 1970: BAA published a 10-year draft plan for Gatwick. This envisaged expanding the area covered by the airport by 840acres (340hectares) to 2,273 acres (920 hectares), including a second, 7,513 ft (2,290 m) long, parallel runway, 2,998 ft (914 m) to the north of the existing runway to enable processing of 20 million passengers per annum at the end of this period. The draft plan also made provisions for another terminal and considered the possibility of a third, short takeoff and landing (STOL) runway further north of the proposed second runway at a future date.[87]
22 August 1970: Westward Airways discontinued its inter-airport air shuttle between Gatwick and Heathrow.[84][88]
November 1970: Caledonian Airways bought British United Airways, following which the combined airline began trading asCaledonian/BUA. The acquisition let Caledonian become a scheduled airline; in addition to the routes inherited from BUA, it began scheduled services to Europe,North andWest Africa,North America and theMiddle andFar East during the 1970s and 1980s.
March 1971: Green Line extended its Gatwick–Heathrow inter-airport express coach service toLuton Airport.[89]
1 November 1971: BCal began the first scheduled service between London and Paris by a private UK airline since the 1930s, operating between Gatwick andLe Bourget.[91]
9 October 1972: The arrival at Gatwick of a Wardair Boeing 707 on a positioning flight fromHonolulu was thought to be the longest non-stop flight of a Boeing 707 at the time.[92]
21 November 1972: A Laker Airways DC-10-10 performed the first revenue flight of a DC-10 in Europe carrying 331 charter passengers from Gatwick to Palma de Mallorca. At the time, this was also the highest number of passengers carried on a single aircraft from the airport.[94]
1973: The third extension of Gatwick's runway was completed, bringing it to 10,165 ft (3,098 m) and allowing for non-stopnarrow-body operations to theUS west coast and commercially viable, long-range wide-body operations.[2]
May 1973: KLM augmented its Heathrow–Amsterdam service with a Gatwick–Amsterdam route, making it the first non-UK airline to split operations between Heathrow and Gatwick for commercial reasons rather than to comply with government directives. Wardair and US supplementalWorld Airways became the first airlines to operateBoeing 747s at Gatwick.[97][98]
1974: Theborough ofCrawley was extended northwards to include Gatwick Airport and its surrounding land. Gatwick Airport thus moved from Surrey into West Sussex.[99]
July 1974: BAA published a revised master plan for Gatwick to take account of lower demand forair travel than anticipated at the time of publication of the draft plan in May 1970, as a consequence of a fall indisposable incomes caused by the1973 oil crisis. This resulted in abandoning the proposal for a second runway and in a downward revision of the number of passengers the airport was expected to handle in the early 1980s to 16 million.[100]
March and May 1977: BCal introduced its first twoDC-10-30s (its first wide-body aircraft) at the airport.[101]
Late 1970s: By now, government initiatives supporting Gatwick's development resulted in steady growth in passenger traffic. Among these were policies seeking to transfer all scheduled services between London and theIberian peninsula from Heathrow to Gatwick,[103] banning whole-plane charters at Heathrow[104] and requiring all airlines planning scheduled services to London for the first time to use Gatwick instead of Heathrow. This policy was known as the London [Air] Traffic Distribution Rules. The government also approved a high-frequency helicopter shuttle service linking Gatwick with Heathrow.[105]
1 April 1978: The London [Air] Traffic Distribution Rules became effective, retroactive to 1 April 1977. The rules were designed to increase Gatwick's utilisation and improve its efficiency across the operating day, all-year round to help it become profitable.[107][108]British Airways (BA) and Aer Lingus began daily scheduled flights between Gatwick andDublin,[105][109] the first use of Gatwick as a London terminal for scheduled services between the British and Irish capitals and the first BA scheduled service from Gatwick with aircraft based at the airport.[nb 6][105] For Aer Lingus, it was the first scheduled service from Gatwick.[105][109]
9 June 1978: 20th anniversary of Gatwick's reopening by Queen Elizabeth II. BCal,British Airways Helicopters and BAA jointly introducedAirlink, a helicopter shuttle service operating 10 times daily to Heathrow.[110][111]
31 December 1978: By now, scheduled flights exceeded charter flights for the first time since the early 1960s.[62][112]
August 1979: BAA signed a legally binding agreement withWest Sussex County Council not to build another runway at Gatwick for 40 years in return for gaining approval to upgrade the taxiway running parallel to the airport's existing runway to an emergency landing strip.[113]
Late 1970s and early 1980s: Fully extendiblejet bridges were added when the piers were rebuilt and extended.[2]
Apron in 1981 (note the prominence of wide-bodied aircraft)
1 August 1980: BCal launched the UK's first private scheduled air service toHong Kong (viaDubai) from the airport.[95][96]
9 November 1980: The departure from Gatwick of aDan-AirComet on a one-hour special charter flight for aircraft enthusiasts marked the last revenue service of the world's first commercialjet airliner.[114]
1982: BCal began operating a small fleet ofBoeing 747-200s from Gatwick.[115] BAA and British Airways Helicopters ended their involvement in the Gatwick–Heathrow Airlink, leaving BCal to assume sole responsibility for this service. This includedBritish Caledonian Helicopters supplying both the helicopter and engineering backup.[116]
2 June 1982: The Pope left Gatwick at the end of his visit aboard a BCal Boeing 707.[119]
December 1982: TheGatwick Hilton opened as the first hotel in Britain to be part of an airport complex.[120]
1983: As passenger numbers grew, a circular satellite pier was added to the terminal building connected to the main terminal by the UK's first automatedpeople mover system.[2] (This replaced the original North pier dating from 1962, and the people mover connecting the main terminal with the satellite pier was subsequently replaced with a walkway andtravelators). A second terminal was planned, and construction began on the North Terminal on the land earmarked for a second runway in the draft plan of May 1970. This was the largest construction project south of London in the 1980s, costing £200 million.[121][122][123][124]
Gatwick in 1984, with the new control tower in background
1984: Gatwick's new air-trafficcontrol tower opened, the tallest in the UK at the time.[123] TheGatwick Express was launched byBritish Rail, the world's first non-stop airport-to-city-centre rail service (between the airport and Victoria Station).[123][125]
1985: Work began on converting the northern parallel taxiway into a second runway for emergency use.[7]
June 1985: British Airways operated the first commercialConcorde flight from Gatwick.[7]
6 February 1986: The last Airlink helicopter shuttle service from Gatwick to Heathrow flew.[126]
Year ending in April 1987: Gatwick overtook New York JFK as the world's second-busiest international airport with 15.86 million international passengers.[127]
End of the 1989–90 fiscal year: By now, scheduled passengers consistently outnumbered non-scheduled passengers at the airport; non-scheduled passengers had accounted for more than half the airport's passengers for most of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.[62][129]
1991: A second aircraft pier was added to the North Terminal. Dan-Air replacedAir Europe as Gatwick's principal short-haul scheduled operator after Air Europe ceased trading early in 1991; both played important roles in the development of the airport's short-haul scheduled route network.[108][130][131][132][133][134]
1994: The North Terminal international departure lounge and the first phase of the South Terminal international departure lounge opened, at a cost of £30 million.[2]
1998: The main runway was extended for a fourth time, reaching 10,879 ft (3,316 m), to enable longer-range operations with wide-body aircraft.[2]
2000 to 2001: Gatwick's two terminals were further expanded to add seating, retail space and catering outlets, at a cost of £60 million; this included an extension to the North Terminal departure lounge, completed in 2001.[2]
2002: EasyJet began stationing planes at Gatwick.
The bridge to Pier 6 in the North Terminal opened in 2005.
2005: An extension and refurbishment to the South Terminal's baggage reclaim hall (doubling it in size) was completed.
16 May 2005: Pier 6 opened at a cost of £110 million, adding 11 pier-served aircraft stands. The pier is linked to the North Terminal's main building by the largest air passenger bridge in the world, spanning a taxiway and providing passengers with views of the airport and taxiing aircraft.[135]
May 2008: An extension of the South Terminal's departure lounge was completed, and a second-floor security search area opened. This terminal is now primarily used by low-cost airlines; many former users moved to the North Terminal.
12 October 2009:Qatar Airways's daily QR076 Gatwick–Doha scheduled service became the first commercial flight powered by fuel derived from natural gas. TheAirbus A340-600HGW operating the six-hour flight ran on a 50–50 blend of syntheticgas-to-liquids (GTL) and conventional, oil-basedkerosene developed byShell instead of oil-basedaviation fuel.[136][137]
After the sale of the airport to GIP, Gatwick's new owners announced their intention to proceed with a previously agreed £1 billion investment programme to upgrade and expand the airport's infrastructure from 2008 to 2014.[139] GIP raised the improvement budget to £1.172 billion,[140] and an additional £1 billion from 2014 to 2019 was agreed in February 2013.[141] GIP began to use its relationships to persuade new and existing airlines to consider launching additional routes from Gatwick, reinstating services suspended as a result of theGreat Recession following the2008 financial crisis and theEU-US Open Skies Agreement and expanding existing operations.[142][143]
22 June 2010: Gatwick Airport Limited (GAL) began a new advertising campaign (by Lewis Moberly) for the airport, featuring theslogan "Your London Airport – Gatwick" and dropped "London" from the airport's name.[144][145]
6 July 2012: AnEmiratesAirbus A380 operated the type's first scheduled service from Gatwick for the airline's 25th anniversary at the airport, in the UK and Europe and to test the aircraft's suitability for the airport.[146][147]
Late February 2013: Two A380-compatible stands were completed, enablingjet bridge access from the west end of the North Terminal's Pier 6.[148][149]
26 March 2013: Emirates operated a second, one-off scheduled A380 flight from Gatwick to test the airport's new three-bridge gate facility at Pier 6's stand 110. This marked the opening of Gatwick's first pier-served, £6.4 million A380 stand.[149][150]
31 May 2013: Demolition began of Pier 1, Gatwick's second-oldest pier (the original 1962 South pier of what is now the South Terminal) for its replacement with a £180 million, two-storey structure with five pier-served aircraft stands and an automated baggage-storage facility, expected to become operational by summer 2016.[151][152]
30 March 2014: Emirates became Gatwick's first airline to operate a regular (as opposed to one-off) scheduled service with the A380.[155]
29 August 2014: Gatwick's main runway handled a record 906 movements, equating to an aircraft taking off or landing every 63 seconds. This was believed to be the first time a commercial airport handled more than 900 aircraft movements in one day using only one runway.[156]
November 2015: Gatwick handled 40 million passengers in a 12-months period for the first time, which was believed to be a global first for a commercial airport with a single-use runway. The 40 millionth passenger departed the airport on board aNorwegian Air Shuttle scheduled flight toSan Juan on 14 November.[157][158][159]
1 February 2016:Caroline Ansell, theMP forEastbourne, officially opened the redeveloped pier 5 of Gatwick's North Terminal. The redevelopment of pier 5 cost £80 million and forms part of the airport's £2 billion improvement programme under GIP ownership. Its main feature is an additional second level that separates departing and arriving passenger flows vertically to increase capacity by an additional 30 flights or approximately 2,400 passengers per day. This increase in capacity is achieved by accommodating up to seven large and 12 smaller aircraft (or a combination of both) at the pier's redesigned aircraft stands to enhance operational flexibility for airlines and passengers and make passenger journeys smoother.[160]
17 May 2016: Gatwick celebrated the 80th anniversary of the first commercial air service from the original Beehive terminal.[161]
14 June 2016:Steve Reed, MP forCroydon North, officially opened the new pier 1 of Gatwick's South Terminal. The new pier cost £186 million. Its main feature is a new early bag store, the airport's first. This allows up to 2,600 bags to be checked up to 18 hours before departure. The new pier 1 development also features new dual boarding facilities enabling boarding/disembarkation both via airbridge or aircraft steps to reduce queues at the passenger gates and speed up the boarding/disembarkation process. Other features include a new lounge for premium passengers on top of the new pier with panoramic views across the airfield, four new taxiways and nine additional aircraft holding points[162]
24 to 25 January 2017: EasyJet consolidated all its Gatwick operations in the North Terminal on 24 January, while British Airways moved to the South Terminal and Virgin Atlantic to the North Terminal on 25 January to improve the airport's operational efficiency and resilience, as the use of different terminals by EasyJet and British Airways reduces pressure on the North Terminal's check-in, security, boarding andramp areas at peak times.[163][164][165]
June 2017: Gatwick handled more than 45 million passengers for the first time on a rolling 12-month basis. The airport also offered regular scheduled flights to more than 60 long-haul destinations for the first time, which was believed to be a global first for a commercial airport with a single-use runway.[166]
15 January 2018: Gatwick-bound scheduled Norwegian Air Shuttle flight DY7014 from New York JFK with 284 passengers on board, which was operated by the airline'sBoeing 787-9 Dreamliner G-CKHL featuring an image of British aviation pioneerAmy Johnson on itstail fin, became the fastest transatlantic flight from New York to London by asubsonic passenger aircraft. The new record of 5 hours and 13 minutes was established as a result oftailwinds reaching a maximum speed of 202 miles per hour (176 kn; 325 km/h) over theAtlantic Ocean. This increased the aircraft's maximum speed to 776 miles per hour (674 kn; 1,249 km/h) and reduced the scheduled flying time by 53 minutes, which enabled the previous record to be bettered by three minutes.[167][168]
9 June 2018: Gatwick celebrated the 60th anniversary of the present-day airport's official opening.[169]
13 June 2018:Stewart Wingate, thechief executive of Gatwick Airport, announced the new five-yearcapital investment plan for the period until 2023 at the British-Irish Airports EXPO in London. This envisages an additional expenditure of £1.11 billion, which takes GIP's total investment since it bought Gatwick from BAA in 2009 to more than £3 billion. Of the planned additional expenditure, £266 million has been allocated to the 2018–19 fiscal year. Amongst others, the main projects covered by this additional expenditure include
a westward extension of the North Terminal's pier 6, involving the relocation of the A380 stand to pier 5 and related widening and reconfiguration of a taxiway to enable A380 operators to access the new stand at pier 5
a dedicated domestic arrival and baggage reclaim facility in the South Terminal
connecting the newBoeing hangar with the airfield.
These and other planned improvements are designed to enable the airport to handle 53 million passengers by 2023.[170]
20 December 2018: Gatwick was closed for a record 33 hours due todrone activity resulting in the British Army being called to try and identify the drone operator and increase prevention.
26 August 2020: Gatwick announced that has plans to cut over a quarter of its employees as a result of a planned company restructuring caused by the effects of theCOVID-19 pandemic. The planned cuts will bring the total workforce of the airport to 1,900; before the start of the pandemic it was 3,300, however, additional 785 jobs were cut earlier in 2020.[172]
27 April 2023: Gatwick Airport rebrands as London Gatwick, with a new logo and refreshed vision.[173]
^holders of supplemental air carrier certificates authorised to operate non-scheduled passenger and cargo services to supplement the scheduled operations of certificated route air carriers; airlines holding supplemental air carrier certificates were also known as "nonskeds" in the US
^using a BAC One-Eleven 500 operating once a day each way from Gatwick toDüsseldorf andFrankfurt respectively and six-times-a-week each way from Gatwick toZürich, in addition to the daily Gatwick–Dublin return flight
^abcdefghijklmnopqrst"Gatwick Airport History", Business & Community Reference Guide for in and around Crawley 2008/09, Wealden Marketing, 2008, p. 85
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^"New way to Paris".Flight International. 4 April 1963. p. 460. Retrieved17 August 2013.
^Aeroplane – Integration in Action ...: the Silver Arrow rail-air-rail service from London to Paris, Vol. 113, No. 2883, pp. 4–6, Temple Press, London, 19 January 1967
^Crawley & Horley Observer (Nostalgia – Some of the famous faces which appeared at Gatwick Airport), Horsham, 11 July 2018
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