Gatwick Airport today welcomes new airline Vueling – the first Spanish airline to serve Barcelona from Gatwick

• Barcelona-based airline Vueling will provide extra links to Barcelona from Gatwick

• Gatwick continues to compete and win new airlines, creating more choice for passengers

2013-03-22 — /travelprnews.com/ — Gatwick Airport today welcomes new airline Vueling – the first Spanish airline to serve Barcelona from Gatwick – to its list of short-haul operators, serving the second largest city in Spain with a twice-daily service.

Barcelona is a hugely popular destination for UK tourists with beaches that stretch nearly three miles and a bustling city centre. It is also a key business market.* Barcelona is a favourite destination from Gatwick, with 740,000 passengers departing to the capital of Catalonia in 2012.**

Gatwick, which currently welcomes 34 million passengers per year, has around 25 per cent spare capacity and is forecast to grow its passenger numbers to around 38 million by 2020. Opening new routes and welcoming new airlines is key to this growth. Recent new direct routes include China, Turkey, Vietnam and coming later in 2013, Indonesia.

Matt Wood, Head of Airline Relations at Gatwick Airport, said: “We are delighted to welcome Vueling and its passengers to the airport today, offering travellers further choice to the popular city of Barcelona. As we continue to compete with other London airports to attract new airlines and new routes, we welcome the fact that links between London Gatwick and Barcelona have now been further strengthened.”

Notes to Editors

• Vueling will commence operations from Gatwick on Friday 22 March 2013 from Gatwick’s North Terminal
• It will operate a twice-daily service with the morning flight arriving at Gatwick at 0925hrs before departing at 1010hrs and the evening flight arriving at Gatwick at 1840hrs before departing at 1920hrs
• It will operate the Airbus A320-200 which flies a total of 180 passengers
• *A Cushman and Wakefield report showed that Barcelona was the sixth best European city for business in 2011, please click the link below to see the full report: http://www.berlin-partner.de/fileadmin/chefredaktion/pdf/studien-rankings/2011_en_European-Cities-Monitor.pdf
• **Source of data: CAA

About Gatwick Airport
Gatwick Airport is the UK’s second largest airport and the busiest single-runway airport in the world. It serves around 200 destinations in 90 countries for around 34 million passengers a year on short- and long-haul point-to-point services. It is also a major economic driver for the South-East region, generating around 23,000 on-airport jobs and a further 13,000 jobs through related activities. The airport is 28 miles south of London with excellent public transport links, including the Gatwick Express. Gatwick Airport is owned by a group of international investment funds, of which Global Infrastructure Partners is the largest shareholder.

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