- Nearly 4.4 million passengers chose to fly through Gatwick in August – up 8.2% on the prior year – making it the busiest month in Gatwick’s history
- Gatwick handled 906 air traffic movements in a day on its single runway – a world first
- North Atlantic routes performed strongly as Norwegian Air announced it will double services to New York and LA from next summer
LONDON, 2014-9-16 — /Travel PR News/ — August 2014 traffic performance summary
| Month | Moving Annual Total | ||||||
| Growth | Sep-13 | Sep-12 | Growth | ||||
| Aug-14 | Aug-13 | (%) | Aug-14 | Aug-13 | (%) | ||
| Total terminal passengers (000s) | 4,362.6 | 4,032.3 | 8.2% | 37,257.0 | 35,002.5 | 6.4% | |
| Market Analysis: | |||||||
| UK + Channel Islands | 330.1 | 346.8 | (4.8)% | 3,734.5 | 3,821.4 | (2.3)% | |
| Ireland | 119.5 | 119.5 | (0.0)% | 1,280.0 | 1,257.0 | 1.8% | |
| European scheduled | 2,528.5 | 2,232.7 | 13.2% | 21,332.4 | 19,157.6 | 11.4% | |
| European charter | 655.4 | 675.7 | (3.0)% | 3,816.3 | 4,116.0 | (7.3)% | |
| North Atlantic | 210.2 | 202.4 | 3.8% | 1,613.0 | 1,720.3 | (6.2)% | |
| Other long haul | 519.0 | 455.1 | 14.0% | 5,480.8 | 4,930.2 | 11.2% | |
| Air transport movements | 26,501 | 25,515 | 3.9% | 254,587 | 243,185 | 4.7% | |
| Cargo (metric tonnes) | 7,668 | 7,748 | (1.0)% | 90,156 | 99,579 | (9.5)% | |
Note: Origins and destinations are classified according to ultimate origin or destination of aircraft in the case of multi-sector flights
Traffic commentary
Gatwick Airport broke a series of records in August 2014; the airport had its busiest month in its entire history with 4.362 million people choosing to fly through it on leisure and business trips. This was 8.2% up on August 2013, representing an additional 330,300 passengers.
The airport also handled the take-off and landing of 906 planes in a single day (August 29) making it by far the most efficiently operated single runway airport in the world. San Diego Airport – the second busiest single runway airport in the world – manages on average 500 movements per day, with a record of around 700 in a single day.
Over the summer, business and leisure traffic to Europe continued to perform strongly. Popular business routes included Geneva, which was up 16.8%, while routes to emerging economies, such as Turkey, also grew with pace. Passengers travelling to Istanbul Ataturk, the city’s main airport, were up 34.8% year-on-year.
Travel further afield grew to both the east and west in August. The launch of Norwegian’s new low-cost long-haul flights to New York and Los Angeles have proved popular with passengers and have helped bolster traffic to the North Atlantic by 3.8%.
There was also a 14% increase year-on-year for Other Long Haul, which was mainly due to uplift in travel to Dubai. Gatwick’s routes to the UAE, which includes a daily A380 service with Emirates, saw a 13.6% increase in August.
Stewart Wingate, Chief Executive of London Gatwick, said: “Passenger numbers at Gatwick are rapidly increasing and this growth is only expected to continue as we compete for new airlines and open new routes, such as Garuda operating a Gatwick-Jakarta route in September.
“Airports and airlines competing for traffic are delivering tangible benefits for passengers. This is most notably demonstrated by the increasing demand to fly with Norwegian Air on their affordable flights to New York and Los Angeles. The popularity of the routes has seen Norwegian Air announce that it will be doubling the frequency of those flights next year.
“Building a second runway at Gatwick will promote even greater competition among airports and airlines, delivering reduced fares, better services and more choice for passengers. Building a third runway at Heathrow will diminish the choice available to British passengers, making it more expensive to go on holiday, to travel for business and to export goods and services.”