London Gatwick celebrates largest airline launch in a decade as Jet2 takes off
- Jet2’s first flights from its new London Gatwick base took off today to Tenerife and Alicante
- The arrival of the UK’s third-largest airline at London Gatwick has created more than 300 local jobs, including pilots, engineers and cabin crew
- Jet2 will operate 29 routes from London Gatwick this summer, as the airport offers passengers the choice of more than 230 destinations
From today there will be nothing like a Jet2 holiday from London Gatwick, as the airport celebrated its largest airline launch in more than a decade.
At a special event in the airport's South Terminal, Jet2 provided breakfast and giveaways for passengers travelling on its inaugural flight to Tenerife from London Gatwick, which departed this morning.
Guests included Zoe Lister who provides the famous voiceover for the Jet2 adverts, which has become the basis for a global social media trend.
Jet2 will operate 29 routes from the airport this summer using six brand-new Airbus A321neo aircraft, with award-winning flights and package holidays from London Gatwick to destinations across Spain, Türkiye, Portugal, Cyprus, Malta, Greece, Italy, Bulgaria and Croatia.
The airline’s new base at London Gatwick is delivering a major boost to the regional economy with more than 300 new jobs created locally across flight operations, engineering, cabin crew, customer service and ground handling roles.
Pierre-Hugues Schmit, Chief Executive, London Gatwick said: “Today’s inaugural Jet2 flights mark an exciting moment for London Gatwick and for passengers across the region. The launch of 29 new routes and the creation of more than 300 jobs demonstrate the strength of demand for travel from our airport and the confidence airlines have in London Gatwick as a place to grow.
“We’re proud to support Jet2’s newest base, giving passengers even more choice with our extensive and diverse route network, and great value flights and holidays to some of Europe’s most popular destinations.”
Steve Heapy, Chief Executive, Jet2.com and Jet2holidays said: “Today is an incredibly exciting moment for Jet2, as we welcome our first customers at London Gatwick and wave off our inaugural flight. After years of demand to come to London Gatwick, we are delighted to be bringing our award-winning service, recognised 11 years in a row by Which? as its recommended travel provider, to the UK’s largest beach and city leisure destination airport. Seeing our first flight take off from our 14th UK airport base, is an important milestone which we shared with our customers in a huge celebration with a familiar voice too – Zoe Lister.
“Time and time again, we have shown that when we expand our operations and bring the Jet2 product to new customers at a new airport base, customers flock to our brand and award-winning customer service. Since going on sale, we have experienced phenomenal demand from customers and independent travel agents, and we are looking forward to a hugely successful future from our newest UK airport base.”
The new base further strengthens London Gatwick’s position as one of the UK’s leading point-to-point travel providers, offering passengers even greater choice of airlines and destinations while supporting thousands of jobs across the local community.
For Winter 2026/2027, Jet2 has put 23 destinations on sale (14 winter sun, five ski and four Christmas market destinations) from London Gatwick.
With around 43m annual passengers, London Gatwick is the UK’s second largest and one of Europe’s top airports. It is a vital piece of national infrastructure that drives both the national and regional economies by generating £5.5bn GVA and supporting over 76,000 jobs (2023). A record 58 airlines fly from the airport, serving more than 160 short-haul and almost 60 long-haul destinations. With a declared maximum capacity of 57 movements an hour, London Gatwick is the most efficient single runway airport in the world.
The airport is located 28 miles south of the UK capital and is extremely well-connected, with more than a quarter of England’s population (15m people) – including all of London – less than one hour away by road or rail. A six-year, £2bn sustainable growth programme includes an ambitious plan to be a net zero airport by 2030 and to increase capacity by bringing the airport’s existing Northern Runway into routine use, alongside its Main Runway. VINCI Airports owns a 50.01% stake in the airport, with Global Infrastructure Partners managing the remaining 49.99%.
VINCI Airports, as the leading private airport operator in the world, manages the development and operation of more than 70 airports located in 14 countries. VINCI Airports draws on its expertise as a comprehensive integrator to develop, finance, build and operate airports, leveraging its investment capability and know-how to optimise operational performance and modernise infrastructure while bringing about their environmental transition. In 2016, VINCI Airports became the first airport operator to commit to an international environmental strategy, setting itself the aim of reaching zero net emissions (scope 1 and 2) across the network by 2050 while supporting the territories’ local climate transition.
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Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), a part of BlackRock, is a leading infrastructure investor that specialises in investing in, owning and operating some of the largest and most complex assets across the energy, transport, digital infrastructure and water and waste management sectors. With energy pragmatism central to our investment thesis, we are well positioned to support the global energy transition.
GIP’s scaled platform has over $170bn in assets under management. We believe that our focus on real infrastructure assets, combined with our deep proprietary origination network and comprehensive operational expertise, enables us to be responsible stewards of our clients’ capital and to create positive economic impact for communities. For more information, visit www.global-infra.com.
