Busy: LGW’s control tower

The UK’s second busiest airport, London Gatwick (LGW) expects to serve more than 40m passengers next year using the busiest runway in the world.

The 40m mark will be reached a decade ahead of the UK’s Department for Transport predictions made in its January 2013 UK Aviation Forecast.

March produced a record-breaking 2.96m passengers, an increase of +9.2% versus rival London Heathrow’s growth of +3.4% to 5.95m. LGW’s moving annual total shows 38.7m passengers from April 2014 and March 2015 – an increase of +7.8%.

Gatwick Airport’s Chief Executive Officer, Stewart Wingate says: “March is our 25th consecutive month of growth, and in just one year we expect to hit more than 40m annual passengers which will see us reach this milestone a decade ahead of the DfT forecast. The figures speak for themselves; ours is the busiest runway in the world and we need to build a second runway to maximise the nation’s connectivity to the rest of the world.”