Gatwick chief says airport is prepared for peak summer travel rush

The boss of London’s Gatwick airport expects passenger volumes to return close to pre-pandemic levels over the peak summer season but is confident passengers will not face a repeat of last year’s disruptions.

Stewart Wingate, chief executive of Britain’s second-busiest airport, said he expected passenger volumes in the third quarter of 2023, which includes the peak summer school holiday period, to reach 94 per cent of the levels recorded in the same period in 2019.

“We expect in 2023 Gatwick will certainly be busier over the summer period and perhaps a bit more peaky than it was before the pandemic,” Wingate told the Financial Times.

Resurgent demand for short-haul travel has led the recovery in passenger numbers. Wingate said he expected easyJet, the airport’s biggest airline, to have 80 aircraft based at Gatwick over the peak of the summer, compared with 63 in 2019.

The airport had to restrict its maximum number of daily flights in July and August last year after a wave of last-minute cancellations and delays because of staff shortages at airlines and ground handling operators that provide services from check-in to baggage handling.

Gatwick, said Wingate, had worked hard over the past year to ensure it would not have to take the same approach.

“We are going to be busier. We are working really hard to make sure that the airport is ready and that the airlines and their ground handlers are ready. We don’t anticipate any issues over the coming Easter weekend or for the peak summer seasons. We don’t anticipate limiting any growth in July or August time,” he said.

The airlines, said Wingate, were “assuring us they have enough staff”. “All the signs are encouraging that we should be in a good position.”

Gatwick also reappointed NATS, the UK’s air traffic control service, as its service provider at the airport in October last year to make the system more resilient.

Despite the bullish forecast for the peak summer season, Gatwick does not expect passenger numbers to recover fully until 2025.

The airport is forecasting passenger numbers at 40.5mn over the course of 2023, equivalent to 87 per cent of pre-pandemic levels. Last year, 32.8mn people used the airport, returning the business to profitability in 2022.

The company said profit after tax for the year was £196.5mn compared with a loss of £370.6mn the previous year. Revenues were £776.6mn, up from £192.7mn in 2021, driven by a recovery in passenger numbers throughout the year.