Gatwick Airport profits soar by £20million

The number of passengers in the six months to September 30 2013 was 20.8 million - up by 4.4 per cent in comparison to the same period last year.

Growth has come mainly from short haul European flights and business services from easyJet and Turkish Airlines.

Pre-tax profits in the six months to September 2013 were £127.3m, up from £107.2m in the same period last year.

Turnover has increased by 10.7 per cent to £360.6 million.

Stewart Wingate, CEO of London Gatwick, said Gatwick will celebrate four years of new ownership in December.

He said: “In this time we have turned around decades of under investment to enable Gatwick to emerge as a competitive, world-class airport.

“Gatwick continues to attract new airlines and routes, which were once only the domain of Heathrow. We now serve routes as diverse – and strategically important for the UK – as Moscow, Beijing, Istanbul and key cities in Vietnam.

“Next year, we will continue to grow our long haul network with routes including Jakarta, New York and Los Angeles.”

He added that a second runway would help boost the airport’s successes further.

He said: “This is just the start of what Gatwick has to offer. A new runway here would deliver the routes that passengers actually want at a better price, more quickly and with significantly less environmental impact.”