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Gatwick airport news - February, 2009 |
Gatwick Airport is to benefit from receiving more flights departing UK regional airports, arriving at Gatwick, as airlines choose to concentrate their Heathrow operations on the more profitable long haul flights. Flights into London are being moved from Heathrow, the UK’s largest airport, to London Gatwick.
When comparing flights in August 1988 between Heathrow and domestic airports, Hitrans, the Official Airport Guide (OAG), found that there were 842 available. Yet, in June 2008 just 603 flights were operating. However, in the same 10 years, the flights between such domestic airports to Gatwick had actually doubled, rising to 499.
Heathrow has found that it is now down by 30% on internal flight arrivals, despite other London Airports (Gatwick, Luton and Stansted) increasing their arrivals. |
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Aer Lingus has announced it is to create 160 jobs at Gatwick Airport as it introduces eight new routes to Europe, from April this year. The new routes will be to Malaga, Nice, Faro, Munich, Dublin, Vienna, Zurich and Knock.
Gatwick will become the airline’s second base outside of Ireland.
Speaking on behalf of Aer Lingus, a spokesperson commented that over 75,000 tickets had already been sold for the new routes. The spokesperson also went on to say that it saw Gatwick as a huge opportunity, despite many airlines pulling out, or going out of business.
“The market at Gatwick is underserved. Of the 160 new jobs we are creating, most consist of cabin crew and pilots, with over 3,000 applications received to date. Interviews have started this week.” |
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BAA parent, Ferrovial, this week said it is confident that the sale of Gatwick Airport will be complete by April 2009. The President, Joaquin Ayuso Garcia, commented: “Although a calendar date has not been fixed, we are confident that the sale of Gatwick will complete by the end of March, or the beginning of April.”
Ferrovial expect several serious offers for Gatwick, the UK’s second largest airport.
The sale of Gatwick Airport is as a result of mounting pressure by The UK’s Competition Commission. |
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Four airport stores, operated by high street book shop Boarders, will close after leases expire at both Gatwick and Heathrow airports next month. BAA is to take back control of the leases, which expire in around four weeks time, effecting over 40 staff.
CEO of Boarders, Philip Downer, said “BAA have decided to take the leases of our current Gatwick and Heathrow stores under their own control when the leases expire.”
He also confirmed in the same statement that all employees’ employment status would be safeguarded under the Tupe regulations, which is to preserve and protect employees’ terms and conditions when businesses transfer to new employers. |
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Ferrovial, the Spanish Services and Construction group was quoted as saying yesterday that the sale of Gatwick Airport by its UK airports operator BAA would not attract Capital Gains Tax.
Currently reviewing the first offers by various global consortiums for the purchase of the London airport, Ferrovial were reported to say that they did not believe to be liable for the tax, as in similar conditions of sale when they sold BAA’s stakes in a number of Australian airports in 2007.
Such conditions include that the seller of said stakes must have held over 10% of the total value of the asset up for sale in the previous 12 months to sales, and that the company must be actively involved in the operation and trade of the business that is for sale. |
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The UK’s airports were turned into chaos last week when a number of airports around the country had to close due to the snowfall, the heaviest in over 18 years.
Gatwick Airport was shut on Monday evening, 1st February, along with London City Airport. Stansted Airport was also forced to shut later on that evening.
Flights were further disrupted on the Tuesday morning, 2nd February, at Gatwick, London City and Stansted, along with disruption at Heathrow, Luton and Southampton. Gatwick suffered severe delays throughout the day and it was also not able to operate the Gatwick Express rail service. London City was closed for all flights. Stansted was forced to cancel over 270 flights and 95 at Luton.
Heathrow was forced to close both its runways for a time, resulting in over 700 cancellations and delays to flights. And in a dramatic turn of events a Cyprus Airways plane slid off the runway onto the grass whilst taxiing.
BAA stated that it expected further delays and cancellations for a ‘considerable amount of time’. |
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