Gatwick key facts
London Gatwick became an aerodrome back in the 1930s, but the airport we know today was officially opened on 9 June 1958 by Queen Elizabeth II.
Over the last 60 years our airport has grown from just 186,000 passengers to over 46 million passengers in 2019. We recovered strongly in 2022 and remain cautiously optimistic about a full recovery; with popular short and long haul routes performing strongly..
Key stats
2022 |
2019 |
|
| Total passengers | 32.9 million | 46.6 million |
| Aircraft movements | 214,806 | 280,700 |
| Total number of aircraft seats |
40.6 million | 53.9 million |
| Average load factor | 81.1% | 86.3% |
|
Biggest airline |
easyJet carrying |
easyJet carrying |
| Long haul passengers |
11.8% | 19% |
| Top destination served |
Dublin (1.1m passengers) |
Barcelona (1.6m passengers) |
Top 10 Destinations - 2022
Top 10 Destinations - 2019
Facilities
- Number of runways: 1
- Runway length: 3,316m long by 45m wide
- Number of terminals: 2 - South (opened in 1958) and North (opened in 1988)
- South Terminal is 160,000 square metres of which 14,768 square metres is retail facilities
- North Terminal is 98,000 square metres of which 12,530 square metres is retail facilities
-
There are 119 stands, with a total of 186 centrelines - the ability to use a stand flexibly means we can park up to 186 aircraft
-
31 South Terminal stands
-
31 North Terminal stands
- 57 remote stands served by coaches
-
- We have 245 check-in desks, 123 self-service check-in desks and 119 self-service bag drop kiosks.
Transport - we're well connected
- Gatwick was the world’s first airport to have a direct mainline train link with a dedicated railway station
- Gatwick is already the UK’s best connected airport by rail and directly connects to more stations than any other European airport station
- Number of direct rail connections: more than 120
- Time by rail to central London: 30 mins with trains running every three minutes
- With planned improvements, by 2030 there could be up to 50 trains an hour departing Gatwick, and a train every 2.5 minutes
Gatwick has the largest rail catchment of any UK airport and 15 million people - more than a quarter of the population of England - can access Gatwick by road or rail within 60 minutes.
Oyster and contactless:
Gatwick is part of the Oyster and Contactless payment network, meaning rail passengers can benefit from seamless connections to and throughout the capital on London’s ticketless transport network.
Increased capacity:
With new trains, investment and technology, capacity on rail services has more than doubled in the last five years alone and is set to treble by 2030 with the planned improvements.
