Weekday mornings this winter in both arrivals and departures in Gibraltar airport’s new terminal look set to be what could be diplomatically described as ‘challenging’.
The quirks of slot allocation to the airlines mean that three flights are scheduled to arrive within five minutes of each other on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This frenzy of activity will be but a blip as the ramps look set to remain empty for much of the remainder of the day during the year’s quiet season. The winter schedule comes into force on Sunday 30 October with the airport’s three established carriers continuing to provide service to various UK destinations.
Although British Airways (BA) has shifted its flights to Málaga to operate from London Gatwick, its daily service to Gibraltar continues to operate from London Heathrow’s Terminal Three. This winter however the airline has rescheduled the flight to operate later in the day and to offer better connections to passengers arriving from long haul services into London. The single daily flight will leave Heathrow at 10.05am with arrival into Gibraltar at 1.55pm. Departure will be one hour later with arrival back in London at 4.55pm. Additionally, the airline will continue to operate larger 156 seat Airbus A320 aircraft on the route.
easyJet (EZY) launched three weekly flights to Liverpool at the end of March this year. The airline will continue the service at the same frequency this winter.
The only change to the operation is that the Saturday flight moves to a morning operation from The Rock. Inherited with its purchase of GB Airways, the low cost airline’s daily flight to London Gatwick will continue but the schedule has changed to an early morning departure from London. Six days a week the flight is due to land in Gibraltar at 11.05am and after the airline’s customary rapid turn round it leaves for London just 35 minutes later. Saturday flights arrive just under two hours later.
Earlier this year Monarch (ZB) announced a big increase in flights to Spain and Gibraltar citing increased demand as tourists shifted away from North Africa. This winter the airline will be reducing this extra capacity back during the off season. From a peak of 11 weekly flights to London Luton in July and August, the airline will cut this to just four with effect from 07 November 2011.
Although this will be increased to five in the run up to Christmas and New Year, only three weekly flights will operate with effect from 09 January 2012. The airline’s route to Manchester, which saw four weekly flights this summer, will be reduced to three weekly services with the start of the winter timetable.
Looking forward to the summer season, Monarch will offer a substantial increase in flights to both London Luton and Manchester.
The big news however sees the launch on 31 March of bmibaby’s (WW) three weekly flights to Nottingham East Midlands airport – a route set to open Gibraltar and the western Costa Del Sol to the English Midlands.