Air Mauritius intends to switch its London flights from Heathrow to Gatwick in October, and to simultaneously bump them up from five a week to daily, continuing to use A350-900 and A330neo aircraft.
“London has always been a high-priority destination for us and, as part of the commemoration of Air Mauritius’s 50 years of operations to the United Kingdom in November 2023, we are proud to announce daily operations to London Gatwick as from October 29 this year,” said Air Mauritius Chief Executive, Kresimir Kucko, in a statement. He added that the strategic move would allow the carrier to meet increasing demand on the route.
The October 29 switch is a vote of confidence in the secondary airport.
Gatwick offered 38 long-haul passenger routes in 2022 – 62 fewer than in 2019. It handled four million long-haul passengers in 2022, compared with 600 000 in 2021.
Other airlines starting or re-starting flights to Gatwick in the near-term include Delta, Bamboo Airways, Air China, Badr and Saudia.
Heathrow’s high operating charges are well known in aviation circles and costs surely play a part in the popularity of Gatwick and other secondary airports in the UK now that airlines are in expansion mode. Gatwick, on the other hand, already has a low-cost orientation and serves many low-cost carriers. It offers incentives to induce carriers to use the airport, especially long-haul carriers.
The highly constrained take-off and landing slot capacity at Heathrow is likely to be driving airlines to Gatwick. Opportunities for adding extra flights at Heathrow are very limited. Even airlines like Delta, which already operate daily flights or a number of daily frequencies to London Heathrow have little scope to expand at Heathrow. Gatwick welcomes them and can accommodate them.
Ranked by global passenger traffic, Gatwick is 35th busiest airport internationally and the eighth busiest airport in Europe. Gatwick also claims to be the world's leading low-cost airport and, until March 2017, had the world's busiest single-use runway, with a maximum of 55 aircraft movements per hour.
Public consultations have begun on a project increasing the runway’s capacity from 64 million passengers a year to 75 million passengers a year.
It hopes to receive approval by 2024, and have the main works completed by the end of 2028. The word is that 13 years will be required to fully complete the project, which in its final iteration will include a new pier, hotels, terminal expansion and highway improvements, including nearby roadworks.
Gatwick is 45km south of London and is accessible by both the Gatwick Express and mainline Thameslink trains. It takes around half an hour to get into London using the Gatwick Express.
