GATWICK REVIEW OF 2010

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John Dyer Posted: Sat, Jan 1 2011 11:27 AM

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GATWICK REVIEW OF 2010

GENERAL
The year 2010 will probably be well remembered in aviation circles as the year that an Icelandic volcano managed to shut virtually all of European airspace for five days. With the benefit of hindsight, this appears to have been an over-reaction, though possibly an understandable one, on behalf of the various regulatory bodies. New procedures for dealing with such events in the future have been drawn up & it is unlikely that we will see such stringent measures imposed during a similar event in the future. Gatwick closed at 13.00 on 15/4 & did not reopen until about 22.00 on 20/4. However, every cloud has its silver lining & the closure gave many aviation-minded people, including myself, the unique opportunity to take advantage of the lack of movements to fly light aircraft up & down the runway & round the airfield perimeter at low level. These jollies included a mass fly-by on 17/4 by the Tiger Club from Headcorn.  
Early snowfalls also caused the airport to shut at the beginning of December, though GIP seemed to cope far better with later falls, having learnt lessons from the first one.

AIRLINES
Low cost carriers continue to dominate the airport. Ryanair added several more routes, while easyJet goes from strength to strength, continually opening new services & providing us with more destinations & will have 46 aircraft based at Gatwick by the spring (not bad for an airline that only celebrated its 15th birthday in November & now operates a fleet of 174 aircraft). Norwegian Air Shuttle continues to give both a run for their money, while Air Berlin will soon start Gatwick operations providing more competition. Before moving on, we saw 46 new Ryanair B738s in 2010, with a further 21 easyJet A319/320s (plus 5 Swiss re-regs) & another 14 Norwegian B738s. Unfavourable exchange rates in the EU & the USA led to Turkey continuing to be popular with tourists from the UK & we saw a further 28 Turkish airliners from 10 different carriers making their first visits during 2010. Other regular carriers providing significant numbers of newcomers included Afriqiyah (5), Emirates (5), Olympic Air (8), Pegasus (9), RAM (7), Transavia (7), Tunis Air (14) & Windjet (10).
Some one-offs & less common visitors among the airline newcomers included two Armavia A320s, an Air Memphis A320, Qatar A/W A321, two Livingston A321s & one of their A330s, both Mexicana A330s, an Avialsa An-26, Air Italy B733, Calima B734, Air Explore B734, Sky A/L B734, B738 & B739, Corendon Air B738, China A/L Cargo B744F, World Cargo B744F, single B752s of Sky Wings, GainJet & Atlas Jet, two Alitalia B772s & a Kenya A/W one, Libyan A/L CRJ9, Canadian DHC-6 with an emergency, Voyageur A/W DHC-8, MD-80s of Medallion Air & City A/L, two Sun Air Do328JETs, F100s from Contactair & Denim Air, a Volga-Dnepr Il-76, Centurion Air Cargo MD-11F, Nightexpress SD360 &, of course, the A380 that nearly landed. The two UK registered Open Skies B752s arrived at Gatwick as British & left as French, while the two already on the French register appeared for a spot of maintenance. Finally, though not a newcomer, we seem to have acquired a gate guardian in the form of Itali A/L MD-82 I-DAVA, which was detained here after arriving on a Windjet service on the morning of 21/10.

GENERAL AVIATION
On the executive front, the Manx register continues to grow in popularity with another 16 examples appearing here during the year, though what has become another register of convenience, the Austrian one, managed one more than that. The number of GA aircraft registered behind the old Iron Curtain continues to grow & we hosted four new examples from Poland, two each from Estonia & Slovakia, plus single machines from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania & Russia. The most exotic GA visitor, however, was probably the South Korean Gulfstream 550, though the Mexican A/F Gulfstream 3 ran it a close second.

AIRLINE CHANGES
Far less upheaval than in the previous two years, with relatively few changes.
Gains: Air Seychelles, Iraqi A/W, Tunis Air, Viking Hellas and Windjet
Losses: Brussels A/L (moved to LHR), Ghana International (ceased operations), Iraqi A/W (ceased operations), Mexicana (ceased operations), Rossiya (moved to LHR), Transavia (abandoned route), Viking A/L (suspended operations)
Changes expected in 2011: Air Seychelles to pull out of Gatwick in February. Aerosvit & Air Berlin to start services in the spring.
 
AIRLINES AT GATWICK IN 2010
Scheduled/regular carriers as at 31/12/10 are:
Adria, Aer Lingus, Afriqiyah, Air Baltic, Air Europa, Air Malta, Air Moldova, Air Seychelles, Air Southwest, Air Transat, Air Zimbabwe, Astraeus, Aurigny, Belavia, British A/W, Cimber Sterling, Croatia A/L, Cubana, Delta, easyJet, easyJet Switzerland, Emirates, Estonian Air, Flybe, Iceland Express, Malev, Meridian Fly, Monarch, Montenegro A/L, Norwegian Air Shuttle, Olympic Air, Qatar A/W, RAM, SAS, Scot A/W, TAP, Thomas Cook, Thomson A/W, Tunisair, Ukraine International, United A/W, US A/W, Viking Hellas, Virgin Atlantic, Windjet

Other carriers seen at Gatwick this year included:
Aerosvit, Air Berlin, Air Caraibes, Air Contractors, Air Explore, Air Finland, Air Italy, Air Memphis, Alitalia, Arkefly, Armavia, Atlas Jet, Aurela, Aviavilsa, BA Cityflyer, Balkan Holidays, Blue Line, Blue Panorama, BMI, BMI Baby, BMI Regional, Brussels A/L, Bulgaria Air, Calima, Centurion Air Cargo, China A/L Cargo, City A/L, CityJet, Contact Air, Corendon Air, CSA, Cyprus Turkish A/L, Denim Air, Donbassaero, Eastern A/W, Euro Atlantic, Europe Airpost, FlyLAL Charters, FreeBird, GainJet, Ghana International, Hamburg International, Hemus Air, Hi-Fly, Iberworld, IceJet, Iraqi A/W, Itali A/L, Izmir A/L, Jetairfly, JetTime, Jet2, Karthago, Kenya A/W, KLM Cityhopper, LAT Charter, Libyan A/L, Livingston, Luxair, Medallion Air, Mexicana, Mint A/W, MK A/L, Nightexpress, Nouvelair, Omni Air, Onur Air, Open Skies, Pegasus, Portugalia, Pullmantur Air, Rossiya, Saga A/L, SATA, Saudi Arabian, Sky A/L, Sky Wings, Small Planet A/L, Small Planet A/L Poland, SmartLynx, Spanair, Sri Lankan, Strategic A/L, Sun Air, THY, THY Cargo, Thomas Cook Belgium, Thomas Cook Scandinavia, Titan A/W, Tor Air, Transavia, Travel Service, TUI A/L Belgium, Turkuaz Air, United A/L, Viking A/L, Volga-Dnepr, Voyageur A/W, Vueling, White A/L, World Cargo
A large percentage of these visits were due either to diversions or
subbing for other carriers.

FIRST VISITS
New types making their first Gatwick visits during 2010 were the Hawker 4000 & Phenom 100, while a new sub-type was the Il-76TD-90.
The year saw a drop from last year's total of 605 first visits
down to a disappointing 552. The deficit would have been greater had it not been for an unusually good December.

By classification (with comparisons to 2009)
347 airliners (-34)
172 biz jets (-14)
28 biz props/twins (+3)
5 helicopters (-7)
0 others (-1)
The airliner total includes 3 military transports & 20 privately owned executive airliners

Airliners
130 B737 (including 4 BBJ)
51 A320
37 A319 (including 3 A319CJ)
15 B757, B777
13 A330, B767
10 EMB135 (including 9 Legacies)
9 EMB190/195
8 B747
7 A321
6 DHC-8
5 A310
3 Do328JET, Fk100, MD80
2 BAe 146, CRJ-850, Fk70
1 A340, A380*, An-26, C160, CRJ-900, DC-10, Defender, DHC-6, Fk50, Il-76, MD-11, SAAB 2000, SD360
New examples of the following types appeared in 2009, but failed to do so in 2010 - A318, ATR42, ATR72, B717, Be1900, CRJ2, F27, Jetstream, L-1011
The top three places were held by the same types in 2008 & 2009.
* denotes low pass only

Biz Jets
22 Ce525
17 Learjet
16 Ce560
12 CL600, DA2000
11 G5
9 HS125
8 Ce550
7 DA7X, DA900, Premier
6 BD700, Ce680, Galaxy
5 BD100, G4
4 Ce510
3 HA4000
2 Be400, Gulf 150, Phenom
1 DA10, DA50, G3
The Ce525 was also the top type in 2008 & 2009 & the Learjet also held second place last year

Biz props/twins
14 King Air
7 PC-12
5 Avanti
1 P68, PA-31
The King Air was also the top type in 2008 & 2009

Helicopters
2 SA365
1 A109, AS355, S-76

By country prefix (including military)
87 G
67 EI
57 N
29 TC
28 D
19 EC
18 LN, OE, PH
16 M
14 I, TS
13 SX
12 HB
11 F
9 CS
8 A7, CN, OO
7 OY
6 A6, C, VP-B/VQ-B, 5A
5 LX, LY, SP
4 ES, OM, SE
3 OK, S5, S7, UR, VP-C, XA
2 EK, HZ, P4, RA, YR
1 B, ER, EW, HA, HL, SU, S2, TF, YL, ZS, 4O, 5Y
The biggest drop was in the UK registered total, down from 135 in 2009 to 87 this year.   
53 countries compared to 62 in 2009 & 57 in 2008

Total first visits by month
Jan 36 (18 liners, 15 biz, 3 others)
Feb 50 (31 liners, 16 biz, 3 others)
Mar 43 (30 liners, 10 biz, 3 others)
Apr 58 (47 liners,  6 biz, 5 others)
May 50 (35 liners, 11 biz, 4 others)
Jun 40 (21 liners, 16 biz, 3 others)
Jly 46 (31 liners, 15 biz, 0 others)
Aug 38 (23 liners, 12 biz, 3 others)
Sep 49 (37 liners, 10 biz, 2 others)
Oct 33 (21 liners, 12 biz, 0 others)
Nov 38 (23 liners, 12 biz, 3 others)
Dec 71 (30 liners, 37 biz, 4 others)

Military & government newcomers were way down on last year's 18 & comprised:
10+21 A320 GAF
50+93 C160D GAF
258 Learjet 45 Irish Air Corps
TP-06/XC-UJN Gulfstream 3 Mexican A/F
A7-MED A319CJ Qatar Amiri Flight
A7-HHM A332 Qatar Amiri Flight
A6-UAE B744 UAE Government
ZH002 Defender AL2 AAC