Gatwick Airport in the UK has announced its financial results with a record number of passengers, days ahead of the final recommendation by the Airport Commission on runway construction.
The year ending 31 March, was the busiest in the airport’s history as it handled 38.7 million passengers, an increase of 7.8% or 2.8 million passengers over the previous year.
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The facillity insists that the positive growth trend makes it an ideal choice for expansion. Its single-day operations peaked at 906 flights, a world record for a single-runway airport.
Reason for the growth was accredited to the addition of new European business routes to Strasbourg, Brussels and Paris, as it now offers its services to 46 of the top 50 European Union business destinations.
Gatwick Airport CEO Stewart Wingate said: "Gatwick expansion will deliver more passengers to more destinations and provide the economic boost the UK needs at a fraction of the environmental impact of Heathrow.
"Our results are the latest illustration of the momentum gathering behind Gatwick’s case. We have seen a great response from our passengers to new Norwegian long haul services to the US, which has resulted in impressive growth for these new routes.
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By GlobalData"The choice and value offered to our passengers is set to further increase next year as we add low-cost long-haul travel to Canada with Westjet."
The Airport Commission is currently considering three options, including the building of a third runway at Heathrow, extending an existing runway at Heathrow and construction of a new second runway at Gatwick Airport.
Image: London’s Gatwick Airport received a total of 38.7 million passengers for the full year, ending 31st March 2015. Photo: courtesy of Gatwick Airport.
