London Gatwick Airport (IATA: LGW, ICAO: EGKK) is London's second largest international airport and second busiest by total passenger traffic in the United Kingdom after Heathrow. In 2008, it ranked as the world's 28th-busiest airport in terms of passenger numbers, 9th busiest in terms of international passengers and 8th largest in Europe by passenger traffic.
It has the world's busiest single-use runway and is Europe's leading airport for point-to-point flights. Gatwick is located 5 km (3.1 mi) north of the centre of Crawley, West Sussex, and 45.7 km (28.4 mi) south of London.
Passenger numbers peaked in 2007 when the airport handled over 35 million passengers for the first time. However, this total reduced by 2.9% in 2008 with 34,205,887 passengers using Gatwick. Of these, 26.4 million used scheduled flights (77.2%) and 7.8 million (22.8%) non-scheduled services. The airport recorded 263,653 aircraft movements during that period.
Charter airlines generally do not operate from Heathrow and use Gatwick as a base for London and the South East. From 1978 to 2008, many flights to and from the US used Gatwick because of Heathrow restrictions implemented in the Bermuda II agreement between the UK and the US. (As of mid-2009, Delta Air Lines and US Airways are the only US carriers to continue serving Gatwick from the US.) The airport is a base for scheduled operators Aer Lingus, British Airways (BA), EasyJet, Flybe and Virgin Atlantic. The airport is also a base for charter airlines including Monarch Airlines, Thomas Cook Airlines and Thomson Airways. Gatwick is unique amongst London's airports in having a significant airline presence representing each of the three main air transport provider business models, ie full service, low/no frills and charter.
BAA Limited and its predecessors, the British Airports Authority and BAA plc, owned and operated Gatwick continuously from 1 January 1966 until 2 December 2009. On 17 September 2008, BAA announced it would sell Gatwick following a report by the Competition Commission into BAA's market dominance in London and South East England. On 21 October 2009, it was announced that agreement had been reached to sell Gatwick to Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), the owners of London City Airport for £1.51 billion. Of this amount, £55 million will depend on the airport's future traffic development and its owners' future capital structure (£10 million and £45 million respectively). The sale was formally completed on 3 December 2009. On this day, Gatwick's ownership passed from BAA to GIP.
For latest information on London Gatwick Airport, please visit the official website.
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