Gatwick Airport History

London’s Gatwick airport is located 3.1 miles from Crawley, West Sussex and 28.4 miles south of Central London, and is the UK’s second largest airport. It is known as London Gatwick Airport, Gatwick Airport or LGW. Due to the volume of international travellers regularly using this airport there are two terminals – North and South. It is estimated that more than 35 million travellers a year arrive and depart from this travel centre alone.

Previous Facilities

During the war, Gatwick was used as a Royal Air force base and later, in 1953, it was declared London’s second airport. By the time it was officially re-opened in 1956 Gatwick had been transformed into a modern travel facility that provided covered pier linking terminals, a rail station and a 2000ft runway.

Charter and Passenger Traffic

The increase in both charter and passenger traffic, over the years, has required terminal extension and the building of two more piers. A runway extension was also required in order to build London Gatwick Airport into a transatlantic gateway in 1978. In the 1990’s passenger traffic had reached circa 10 million and continued to grow, reaching the 35 million mark in 2007. It was then that the North and South terminals were opened.

Airline Information

Airlines like Delta, Braniff and British Caledonian opened their gateways to the USA from this UK location. As a busy international airport, Gatwick’s growth does impact on environmental and social awareness. Whilst the development of a second runway would easily meet growing travel demands, opposition from environmentalists and local residents currently remains strong.

Scheduled airline operators Aer Lingus, British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and EasyJet are based at Gatwick airport, with many chartered airlines – Thomson Airways and Monarch Airlines included – also establishing a base here. This ensures that Gatwick airport’s airline presence represents the three key business models for travellers – full service, no frills and charter travel options.

Airparks offer a great range of Gatwick Airport parking facilities at the airport.