Gatwick shuttle to start operating again in July

Work on London Gatwick Airport’s new inter-terminal shuttle is coming along with the new carriages now on the track. In an operation which took over two days six new cars, each weighing 14 tonnes, were lifted on to the track that runs between the North and South Terminals.

The cars will now be fully testes to ensure they are ready to carry passengers with the new shuttle service now scheduled to start operating in July which is a month ahead of schedule.

The £44 million project has involved refurbishing the track and the stations and will provide a state-of-the-art service as annual passenger numbers grow to around 40 million over the next few years. It replaces the original system which was installed in 1987 and removed from service last September. It completed more than two and a half million miles over 20 years, which is equivalent to 100 times around the earth or five return trips to the moon.

No more flights to New York from Gatwick Airport

British Airways is ceasing operation of its Gatwick-New York route in October this year. It will mean that following earlier withdrawals by Virgin Atlantic, Delta Air Lines and Continental this is the first time in 25 years that Gatwick Airport will not fly to the Big Apple.

The cancellation of the route is due to disappointing premium traffic, and BA is now planning to launch the first transatlantic service from the much smaller London City airport.

It is a business-class-only service on an Airbus 318 an requires a fuel stop at Ireland's Shannon Airport en route to New York, but the airline said that passengers would be able to do US customs clearance during the stop. Eastbound flights will be nonstop.

Gatwick Airport for Sale

BAA has today announced its intention to sell Gatwick Airport, which is the UK's second busiest airport after Heathrow handling 35 million passengers last year.

They currently own Heathrow, Stansted and Scotland's three biggest airports and say that selling London Gatwick Airport would be of benefit to the business, customers and staff.

Their decision follows a report from the Competition Commission last month which identified significant competition problems because of BAA's dominant position and proposed that they stop running two of their three London airports.

BAA want to continue to operate their three other South East airports (which include Southampton) and its three Scottish hubs. However the Competition Commission may well order BAA to also sell Stansted Airport as well as either Glasgow or Edinburgh Airport.

Virgin Atlantic, owned by Sir Richard Branson, immediately stated that they are very interested in this proposal and want to join a bidding consortium for London Gatwick Airport.

Emergency Landing After Fire On Gatwick Bound Flight

A Thomsonfly holiday flight from Pula, Croatia to Gatwick Airport was forced to make an emergency landing following an on-board fire.

The Boeing 737-800 had reached 3000ft after take off when staff became aware of black smoke filling the cabin.

The captain returned the plane to Pula in an emergency landing, where the plane was greeted by a fleet of fire engines.

The pilot was praised for his quick reactions, and although passengers were shaken, nobody was injured.

UK Airport Strike Called Off

Baggage handlers and cabin crew at Stansted, Gatwick and Manchester airports have called off a series of 24 hour strikes.

Strikes were due to take place on bank holiday Monday and 29th August at the london airports, and on the 27th August at Manchester airport. This weekend is one of the busiest holiday weekends of the year, so the strikes would have been sure to cause a great deal of disruption for travellers.

A separate strike is still going ahead at Stansted airport involving over 30 security scanner operators. This will take place on Monday, although Stansted airport have issued a statement stating that the strike would cause "minimal, if any" disruption.

More Delays, Less Complaints!

Flight delays from UK airports are becoming increasingly common, with average delays for charter flights being 25 minutes, and scheduled flights 17 minutes.

The worst offenders were Heathrow Airport, Gatwick Airport and Edinburgh Airport, with between 33 and 42% delayed flights.

The official airline consumer watchdog, the Air Transport Users Council, reported just over 11,000 complaints in the year 2007 / 2008. Nearly half of these complaints were about delayed or cancelled flights, although there were significantly less complaints than the previous year.

So why are we putting up with more delays? It could be that airports now have much better shopping, catering and leisure facilities to keep us occupied while we wait. It could also be that we are simply getting used to all the delays, especially since the introduction of higher level security checks which means more hanging around.

The more cynically inclined could be forgiven for thinking that airport delays were contrived to make us spend more money at the airport terminals!

Virgin Upper Class Sale

Virgin Atlantic have announced the sale of Upper Class seats on a range of flights out of London Heathrow and Gatwick, with prices starting as low as £1,099 return to New York.

The promotion also includes flights to Boston, Chicago, Washington DC, Miami, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Delhi, Mumbai, Shanghai, Dubai, Lagos and Nairobi, for tickets purchased before June 24, for travel until December 31.

The Virgin Atlantic Upper Class Experience starts with a complimentary chauffeur driven car service to and from the airport. Your seat is more like a suite, with a table and extra seat for a guest / business meeting, and the seat reclines into a fully flat position, converting into a wide and very confortable bed. The 'snooze pack' includes all kinds of goodies to help you relax and enjoy the flight, including Cowshed beauty products and essentials such as toothbrush, eyeshades, socks and earplugs.

Monarch Publishes Winter 2008/2009 Flight Schedule

Monarch has published its new 2008/2009 winter flight schedule, with several new flight routes and additional services on existing routes from London Gatwick, London Luton, Birmingham International and Manchester Airports.

London Gatwick and Manchester Airports will see their first winter flights to Larnaca, with up to three flights per week.

The Manchester to Gibraltar route will be re-started, operating three times per week, and the number of flights operating between London Gatwick, Lanzarote and Tenerife, will be doubled.

New Easyjet Flights To Mykonos, Montpellier & Malaga

Easyjet launches four new flight routes this week from London Gatwick airport. New flight destinations include Mykonos, which has a twice weekly flight departing Sundays and Thursdays; Montpellier, with daily flights; and weekly flights to Ajaccio and Bastia.

Manchester Airport sees the launch of a new daily service to Malaga, and a twice weekly service to Crete.

Easyjet Launches Earlybird Flights From Belfast to Gatwick

Easyjet have added an extra daily flight from Belfast to Gatwick, aimed at business travellers.

The new flight leaves Belfast International Airport at 06.30, arriving at London Gatwick at 07.55. This will enable travellers to spend a full working day in the UK capital without having to stay overnight.

Virgin Atlantic Sale Fares To The Caribbean

Virgin Atlantic have launched sale fares to a range of caribbean holiday destinations, including Antigua, Barbados, Grenada & St Lucia.

Fares start at £392 for a return flight, departing from London Gatwick and Manchester airport.

The offer runs until 10pm April 29th.

Gatwick Lifts Hand Luggage Restrictions

Following the lifting of hand baggage restrictions by the government on 31st March, Gatwick airport has now relaxed rules at the airport to allow up to two pieces of hand luggage per passenger.

However, the individual airlines do still have the last say on the matter, so it is advisable to check with your airline before going to the airport.

Rules regarding which items can be carried in hand luggage have not changed.

Monarch Launches Winter Flight Schedule

Monarch Airlines have just launched their new winter 2008/2009 flight schedule from Luton airport and Birmingham airport.

In response to customer demand, there will be more flights to Tenerife and Lanzarote from both airports, plus more flights to Alicante and Malaga from Birmingham. Luton airport will see more flights to Gibraltar.

Winter schedules for Manchester airport and London Gatwick airport will be announced shortly.

Check out the Monarch website for more information and to book flights.

Flybe launches new flights

Low cost airline Flybe is starting 34 new flights to UK and European city destinations, including flights from Gatwick, Manchester, Birmingham and Edinburgh airports.

There will be two new year-round routes from Jersey to Paris Charles de Gaulle airport and Dublin to Glasgow. Flybe will also be operating two new routes under a franchise agreement with Loganair from Dundee to Birmingham and Belfast.

Exeter airport will also see new flights operating to Brussels, with prices starting from 29.99 GBP one-way, and Dubrovnik starting from 69.99 GBP one-way.

Flights to Poland contribute to UK airport traffic growth

Flights to Poland accounted for 20% of the growth in traffic at UK airports last year, according to figures published by the Civil Aviation Authority.

The total number of passengers passing through UK airports in 2007 was 241 million, up 2.4% on the previous year. This equates to an extra 5.6 million passengers, of which 1 million came from Poland.

Transatlantic flights experienced an increase of 0.7 million passengers, rising from 21.7 to 22.4 million, reflecting the weakened position of the dollar.

Heathrow Airport handled the largest number of passengers, with 68 million passengers passing through the gates, or 28% of the total. Gatwick Airport handled 14.6%, Stansted Airport 10%, Manchester Airport 9%, and Luton Airport 4%.

Flight cancellations and delays at UK airports

Flights to and from UK airports, including Gatwick, Heathrow, Manchester, Aberdeen and Glasgow International, continue to experience cancellations and delays due to the severe weather conditions.

Passengers travelling to and from all UK airports are advised to check the status of their flight before heading to the airport. Live UK flight departure and arrival information can be found on the UK Airport Guide, by visiting the information pages relating to the individual airport in question.

Getting from Gatwick to Romford

Hi Collette,

You need to get the train from Gatwick Station (which is based under the airport south terminal) to Romford (journey time 1 hour 45 minutes) - http://ojp1.nationalrail.co.uk/en/pj/tt The hospital is 0.6km from the station in Rom Valley Way - details of buses can be found at http://www.bhrhospitals.nhs.uk/visitingus/newhos4.php

Linda


Hello,

I may be travelling to Gatwick on Thursday 31st January – if I do I would arrive on jet2 flight at 08:00

I need to travel to Queens Hospital in Romford Essex for an appointment at 11:45 – what are my bus and rail travel options including duration and cost please?



Many thanks

Collette

Record numbers of passengers at BAA Airports

About 10.8 million travellers passed through a BAA airport in November, representing a rise of 1.5% compared with the same month in 2006. Statistics released by BAA this week also show that long-haul routes across the North Atlantic saw the highest rates of growth last month.

Gatwick experienced the strongest passenger growth rate during November, followed by Edinburgh and Heathrow.

December could see a bigger increase in passenger traffic as a result of the peak Christmas travel period. Last year BAA airports handled 10.9 million travellers in December, despite foggy conditions in the south-east of England adversely affecting some flights in the run-up to Christmas.

Airline workers strike threat over New Year

Holiday plans could be thrown into chaos for tens of thousands air travellers after BAA staff moved to vote on strike action in a row over pensions where there are plans to stop new entrants joining the company's final salary pension scheme from 1 December.

5,000 union members employed by the British Airports Authority will be balloted over the next few weeks on whether or not to launch a campaign of industrial action. A strike could see the BAA airports, which include Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Heathrow and Gatwick, closed from 27 December and causing chaos during the New Year travel period.

BA flying empty planes from London to North America

British Airways has been flying planes from the UK to North America without a single passenger aboard because of a cabin crew shortage. Since November 1st, about one BA flight a day from Britain to the United States or Canada has left Heathrow or Gatwick airport carrying only pilots and cargo so that they could up passengers in those countries who were due to fly to Britain.

BA said it is working hard to resolve the problem which is caused by the difficulty it sometimes has co-ordinating the separate schedules of its 15,000 full-and part-time cabin crew members, 3,000 pilots and 240 planes operating around the world, which sometimes leads to a lack of cabin crew for a specific flight.

Airline business travellers "lose" 400 laptops every year

Business travellers are being warned to keep an eye on their belongings after a new survey revealed 8,500 mobile devices are lost in UK airports annually.

Security firm SafeNet have published figures showing that travellers through London airports Heathrow and Gatwick were most likely to lose their mobiles or laptops and are misplacing 400 laptops and 2,500 other mobile gadgets every year.

Those travelling through airports in the north-west including Liverpool's John Lennon airport lose 100 portable computers and 800 mobile devices (including BlackBerrys and USB sticks) every 12 months.

Monarch Airlines introduce new on board recycling system

Monarch is the first UK airline to roll out a full recycling programme onboard its flights, meaning that all recyclable items, such as aluminium drinks cans, plastic wine and water bottles, glass wine and champagne bottles plus newspapers/magazines placed into a separate recycling bag by cabin crew during the flight. This will subsequently be passed over to cleaning staff at Gatwick Airport on the flight’s arrival for recycling.

Staff Shortages at Gatwick Airport cause BA to cancel fights

Staff shortages have caused British Airways to cancel some flights from Gatwick, including one transatlantic service.

A flight to Houston in Texas was among those axed and one of the passengers said: "I've heard that BA is about 200 crew staff short and there is huge disruption to its flights.

New Onward Travel Centre at Gatwick Airport

The new travel centre at Gatwick Airport which opened on 29th October is designed to make travelling easier for passengers as it brings together a number of onward travel options for passengers returning from Malaga and other holiday destinations.

Southern Trains, Gatwick Express trains, National Express coaches and the Hotelink taxi service run through the onward travel hub. Gatwick is the second largest air hub in the UK and hopes eventually to have 40% of its non-transfer passengers using public transport for onward journeys.

Virgin Atlantic announces route from Gatwick Airport to Kingston Jamaica

Virgin Atlantic has started operating flights on its new route between Gatwick Airport and Kingston in Jamaica. The direct service flys four times a week between the two destinations. Kingston is the carrier's eighth Caribbean destination adding to its list of destinations including Antigua, Barbados, St Lucia and Grenada.

National Express launches new airport transfer service in London

In November 2007 National Express will launch dot2dot which is a a new airport transfer service operating between Heathrow and Gatwick airports and central London hotels.

dot2dot have been working with IT services company Concentra to develop a state of the art website which collects all the details of when and where passengers wish to travel, and prepares a tailor made itinerary to meet their requirements.

The website advises passengers when they should travel, suggested pick up times, check in time at the airport and drive times. For visitors to London, it removes the anxiety associated with planning travel in an unfamiliar city.

GB Airways Purchased by Easyjet

GB Airways flys to destinations across Southern Europe and North Africa under a franchise agreement with British Airways. It operates 39 routes (28 from Gatwick, 6 from Manchester and 5 from Heathrow).

The acquisition of GB Airways will strengthen easyJet's operations at Gatwick which is the airline’s biggest base. Following the purchase easyJet will operate 24% of Gatwick’s slots and will fly approximately 8 million passengers across 62 routes.


GB Airways will continue to operate all routes under the British Airways banner until March 29th 2008: after which flights will come under the easyJet brand. It is anticipated that by winter next year GB Airways will be fully consolidated into the easyJet business

Spain most popular choice for half term holidays

Officials at Gatwick have said that Malaga is the most popular holiday hotspot for families taking advantage of the week-long break from school, with other popular Spanish destinations including Tenerife, Palma de Mallorca and Alicante. Almost 500,000 passengers passed through the Gatwick between Friday October 19th and Monday 22nd, with Friday being the busiest of the four key days for half-term travel

Edinburgh, Faro in Portugal, Dalaman in Turkey, Orlando in Florida and Amsterdam were the other top destinations.

Recent figures from the Office for National Statistics illustrate that Britons heading overseas rose by one million in the 12 months to August, with trips to long-haul destinations rising by 7%.

British Airways ban on carrying surfboards between Gatwick and Newquay Airports

Surfers are calling on British Airways to reverse a ban on carrying boards which is due to start on 6 November and include BA flights between London Gatwick and Newquay in Cornwall which is one of the UK's main surfing destinations.

BA says that due to handling complexities it will no longer carry surfboards, hang-gliders, javelins, canoes and pole vaults. Members of the Newquay-based British Surfing Association (BSA) are appealing against the decision and have said they find it extremely hard to believe that the average surfboard would be more difficult to handle than a double bass.

New V Room at Gatwick Airport

Virgin Holidays have announced a new concept called the V Room which is due to open in spring 2008 at Gatwick Airport. It will occupy 7,340 square feet and be for the exclusive use of Virgin Holiday's customers - changing the concept of VIP lounges forever.

The V ROOM will offer runway views from floor to ceiling windows and will feature three areas: kids, adults-only and family. The family-friendly space will offer soft play area, telescopes and some exciting games which are currently under wraps.

Gatwick named as best UK Airport for fourth time

Gatwick Airport has been named the UK's Best Airport at the Travel Bulletin Awards. It was the fourth time that the airport had received the award made by travel agents across the UK.

The Best UK Regional Airport was named as East Midlands, which beat off competition from Birmingham and Manchester.

East Midlands Airport also scooped the World's Leading Eco-Friendly Airport prize at the recent World Travel Awards, because of initiatives including aiming to be carbon neutral by 2012, installing environmentally friendly features such as ground heating pumps, and planning to install wind turbine

Virgin Atlantic discussing purchase of 10 new long haul planes out of Gatwick Airport

Virgin Atlantic is in talks with Boeing and Airbus about ordering 10 next-generation fuel-efficient aircraft to operate Virgin Atlantic services out of Gatwick Airport

The order could be for 747-8s or A380s which would start operating around the time of the Olympics in 2012. Virgin Atlantic will take a decision by May next year."

In April, Virgin placed an order for 15 of Boeing's new carbon-composite 787 Dreamliner jets worth around $2.8 billion (1.37 billion pounds) to be mostly based at Heathrow airport.

Virgin currently has six A380s on order from 2013.