Charter traffic from Gatwick down by almost a fifth
Gatwick airport saw a dramatic 19% drop in charter passengers last month compared with January 2013.
Overall, traffic from the southeast airport was up 6.6% and it handled a total of 2.2 million passengers.
Gatwick said the drop in charter passengers reflected the longer-term shift in the market towards low-cost scheduled airlines, such as easyJet. However, the fall was much greater than a year ago, when the airport saw a fall in charter passengers of just 2.5%.
The airport said the majority of the growth seen in January was on flights to key business routes including Stockholm, Istanbul, Moscow and Copenhagen.
The greatest increase in passenger numbers this year was on flights to Europe, which carried 8% more passengers than a year earlier.
Long haul traffic was up 11.3%, mainly as a result of increases on leisure routes such as Thailand and Sri Lanka. This was complemented by growth on long haul business routes such as Dubai, said the airport.
Travel to North America was down 13.4%, mainly due to US Airways dropping its flights from Gatwick in 2013, but the airport claimed this summer’s launch of three new Norwegian fights to the US (New York, Los Angeles and Florida) will help boost traffic to the States.
Gatwick’s chief financial officer Nick Dunn, said: "We saw steady growth to Europe in January, which is by far the dominant market for business and leisure passengers travelling from London and the South East.
"Alongside European growth however, we continue to see strong performance in long haul travel, particularly on established routes to the Middle East, Far East and the Indian Sub-Continent.
"Next month we will be welcoming Emirates’ daily A380 services to Dubai and Air China’s flights to Beijing to further strengthen these routes and provide even greater choice and convenience for passengers."
Linsey McNeill
Editor Linsey McNeill has been writing about travel for more than three decades. Bylines include The Times, Telegraph, Observer, Guardian and Which? plus the South China Morning Post. She also shares insider tips on thetraveljournalist.co.uk
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