London Gatwick has done it again! Well, their air traffic controllers have when, on 29th August, they handled a total of 906 movements in a single day, from a single runway. Phew! That’s one take-off or landing every 63 seconds, breaking their previous record they set in 2008 of what appears a mere 895 movements.
NATS, air traffic services provider at Gatwick Airport, claim that they are the only operator in the world that has achieved over 900 aircraft movements in one day, using just one runway; not only that, they’ve achieved this feat four times in August!
Steve Anderson, NATS general manager at Gatwick, said: “To achieve over 900 runway movements means everything has to be working in perfect sync – from optimising the order of arriving and departing flights through to fine tuning the arrival spacing.”
Supported by controllers looking after the Gatwick sector of the London Terminal Manoeuvring Area, the NATS team and Anderson acknowledged that the controllers play “an absolutely integral role” and that “achieving 900 movements would not be possible without a NATS-wide team effort.”
Unfortunately, this huge achievement is marred slightly by the report that due to the withdrawal of Flybe routes from Gatwick, and EasyJet reducing their flights, the number of passengers using the Isle of Man Airport fell for the second consecutive month in July, plus 4,300 fewer passengers travelled to London and there was a drop in passengers of 1,900 on the Liverpool route. But there is good news; BA’s CityFlyer’s London City service saw an increase of over 30%, with over 6,800 passengers using the service, and Flybe’s Manchester route has risen by more than 20%.
It’s always tough when routes are withdrawn and any airport will suffer a drop in passenger movement. But that’s not to say that the tide won’t turn at some point in the future; it will, and if the airport’s air traffic control team along with NATS continue to break these staggering record number of movements in one day, using just one runway – a plus point for expansion at Gatwick? – passengers may well start to prefer the UK’s second busiest airport.