Gatwick scraps capacity restraints amid return to ‘business as usual’

theguardian.com:

Gatwick airport has said it is back to “business as usual” and will not need to extend its capacity restraints beyond the end of the month.

The company said normal operations have resumed following months of strain on airports and airlines across Europe amid a surge in demand and staff shortages as pandemic restrictions eased.

The UK’s second-biggest airport also revealed it had returned to profit, making a profit after tax in the first half of the year of £50.6m, a turnaround on a £244.6m loss in the same period last year.

The airport had said in June that it was moderating the growth in the number of flights after major disruption over the platinum jubilee bank holiday.

Without constraints over the summer passengers would have experienced poor standards of service, Gatwick said, while queues would have been long and many flights would have been delayed or cancelled at the last minute.

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The airport’s chief executive, Stewart Wingate, said: “The unprecedented growth in traffic led to short-term operational issues in June; however, our decisive early action to limit the airport’s capacity in the crucial school holiday period of July and August has ensured passengers have experienced reliable flight timetables over the summer months.

“We are now very much operating business as usual and do not see any reason to extend the capacity declaration.”

He said the boom in demand for overseas travel had helped the airport bounce back from the pandemic, with demand between April and June rising to 74% of pre-pandemic levels.

More than 13 million passengers travelled through the airport in the six months to