“Our focus for the future is to improve the end-to-end passenger experience. Over 37% of our passengers travel to Gatwick Airport by public transport, which is the highest share we achieved since the mid 1980's”, James Bradley, Surface Access Manager at Gatwick Airport said to airrail NEWS.

According to him, one of the first projects to be completed in the billion pound investment programme is the £45 million transit system between the North and South Terminals, which will reopen in a few weeks just in time for the busy period. The modernisation included replacing the track, building new station and buying new trains.

“The trains will be able to carry 900 passengers per hour in each direction. There will be two trains every three minutes. At the moment South Terminal handles 25 million passengers annually and the North Terminal – 16 million. One of the key goals of the investments programme is to balance the capacity of both terminals, allowing the North Terminal to handle more passengers”, James said.

Gatwick Airport is also in discussions with Network Rail and South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) to jointly invest some £53 million in the Gatwick Railway Station. One of the key elements of the Rail Station Project is the opening of a new platform 7 on the eastern side of the station providing more capacity for rail services. “Gatwick Express is currently stopping at the platforms 1 and 2, so, when coming from London on the fast lines, it has to cross the other lines to terminate there. This reduces the capacity of trains to and through the station”, explained James Bradley.

More than 12 million passengers use the Gatwick Rail Station each year, making it the busiest airport rail station in Britain. Approximately 10-million of the passengers are airport customers, around one million being airport staff and the remainder are park and ride passengers.

“The station needs a facelift and the £53 million track and capacity improvements sit alongside our major developments of the South Terminal forecourt and concourse. In the future we are also looking to improve the interchange between rail and bus services”, said Bradley.

Gatwick Airport is aiming to increase its capacity to at least 40 million passengers a year by 2018 and the public transport mode share to 40%.

“Already 77.4% of air passengers from London are using public transport to travel to the Gatwick Airport and many of them arrive on dedicated rail services. The future aim is to increase this share to 90% and Gatwick Express is absolutely critical to our growth plans.”

Mode of Transport	% of Air passengers
Rail	30.4
Bus & Coach	5.3
Total Public Transport	35.7
Private Car – dropped off	22.7
Private Car – parked	25.6
Taxi & Minicab	13.6
Hire Cars	1.8
Other	0.6

Gatwick Airport Facts:

• Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) acquired Gatwick Airport on 4th December 2009;
• Second Biggest Airport in the UK with approx. 33 million passengers using the airport annually;
• 23 thousand people work at Gatwick Airport (3.5 thousand directly employed by Gatwick Airport Ltd.);
• Gatwick Airport creates £2.1 billion GVA annually;
• GIP are planning to invest £1 billion over the next 2.5 years into improving processes & technology;
• £45 million transit system between North and South Terminals will open at the end of July 2010;
• Gatwick Airport Rail station is busiest airport rail station in UK.

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