London Gatwick Airport has outlined plans to bring its standby runway into routine use for departing flights alongside the existing main runway by the mid-2020s, a move it said would accommodate between 10 and 15 more hourly aircraft movements during peak hours and add resilience to the operation. The airport, the UK’s second busiest in terms of passenger throughput and the world’s busiest single-runway airport, described the proposal as “innovative” and a viable way to “grow and do more Britain” as the country prepares to exit the European Union. Gatwick handled 45.6 million passengers and 282,000 aircraft movements in 2017.
“As the UK heads towards an important new chapter, Gatwick’s growing global connections are needed more than ever, but this must be achieved in the most sustainable way,” London Gatwick CEO Stewart Wingate said.
Under its current planning agreement, the parallel standby or northern runway (designated 08L/26R) can operate only when the primary runway is closed for maintenance or emergencies, but the 40-year agreement prohibiting the simultaneous use of the two runways comes to an end in 2019, Gatwick said. The project, if approved by the authorities, will require “some” reconfiguration of the airfield and some additional support infrastructure. Runway 08L/26R currently serves as a visual runway with a pavement length of 8,415 feet.
The airport continues to develop details of the plan but it said that, conceptually, the fully instrumented main 10,880-foot runway would continue to accommodate all arriving flights because the standby runway doesn’t carry the same low-visibility capability. Departing flights would be split; all of the larger, widebody aircraft would use the main, longer runway and the standby runway would serve smaller aircraft, such as Airbus A320s and Boeing 737s.
Gatwick claims it could deliver the project without increasing airport charges and said it proposes that it extend the existing framework agreement with airlines to the mid-2020s.
Upgrading the existing standby runway into regular use forms part of the Gatwick’s draft master plan that it presented Thursday. The airport’s vision for the coming 15 years tables two other scenarios to grow: construction of a new runway to the south of the airport and using new technologies—some of which remain in a development phase—on the main runway to increase the scheduled capacity from the current maximum of 55 movements per hour to around 60 movements per hour during peak periods by the early 2030s. Gatwick pointed out it is not actively pursuing the first option but cited “national interest” in its desire to safeguard the land for the future. Gatwick lost to Heathrow when the UK government in June decided where the next full runway in the South East of England should be built.
Gatwick anticipates its throughput would grow to 68- to 70 million passengers per year by 2032 with the standby runway plan, compared with 57- to 61 million passengers given the single runway scenario.