Gatwick Airport has its 'mojo back' as Lufthansa launches double daily flights to Frankfurt

In recent weeks we have seen announcements at Gatwick including Delta Airlines returning after 15 years, Air India starting 12 weekly flights and services to Beijing return with Air China. These positive announcements were added to this week with the launch of Lufthansa’s double daily flight to Frankfurt, the home of the European Central Bank.

Gatwick, like many, suffered during the pandemic with the South Terminal closed for nearly two years. It’s been a slow recovery but with serving 90 per cent of pre-pandemic destinations at Easter, it looks like it’s nearly back to a fill recovery.

"We are certainly going in the right direction,” said Jonathan Pollard, Gatwick’s chief commercial officer, speaking at the launch of the Lufthansa flights. “We have seem some fantastic new carriers starting up. It’s great to welcome Delta back, we saw Air India launch recently, we have Air China back. All of these key long-haul destinations that we know our passengers want we are really pleased to see them back. The years of Covid now start, at long last, feel like something ago.

“As an airport we have got our mojo back. It feels normal, we are looking ahead to a very busy summer season which is another sign of normality. It’s a good time to be at Gatwick.”

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And on the Lufthansa launch, Pollard highlighted the business benefits of the route to Frankfurt. “It’s a fantastic day for Gatwick, something we have been looking forward to for some time. We are delighted to welcome Lufthansa to the Gatwick family, a world-renowned, prestigious carrier, won many awards over the years for service and performance. A real credit and addition to the suite of carriers we already have here.

“There is an important business angle. We know local communities are looking for more business connections and Frankfurt is one of the world’s major financial hubs. Frankfurt Airport itself is the seventh largest in the world for international traffic so there is an incredible amount of connections exist from Frankfurt for those who are wanting it.”

Henri Lange, senior director sales Northern Europe, Lufthansa, said: “It’s always great to open new routes, for us it will be the 11th destination in the UK for Lufthansa and 13th destination in total for the group. We want to be where our customers are and Gatwick is in a great place to not only serve the south of London but also Sussex and all the connected regions.

“We are really excited to be closer to our customers here and hopefully our new double-daily flights will serve that purpose.”

Brett North, chairman of Gatwick Diamond, added: “Most importantly for local businesses and the Gatwick Diamond is that Frankfurt is a really important city for getting around Germany. It’s got great rail connections but it is also the connection routes it has going to markets such as Asia, Africa and other areas where we seeing businesses really looking to develop and grow certainly post-Brexit where we are looking out how more international we can do and what businesses we can attract.”