British Airways is set to operate its biggest summer schedule from Gatwick in almost a decade following the acquisition of failed Monarch’s take-off and landing slots.
More than 150 additional weekly flights have been scheduled over the 1,000 a week flown from the airport last summer.
Flights to Malaga will be boosted from 27 to 35 a week, Alicante from 14 to 22, Faro from 17 to 21, Tenerife from six to 13, Madeira from six to nine and Lanzarote from three to five.
The expansion comes as BA bolsters its winter schedule from Gatwick with more than 40,000 extra seats in February and March.
An additional 400 flights will operate between February 9 and March 24.
BA has already introduced more long-haul destinations to Gatwick next summer with new routes to Toronto and Las Vegas, joining Oakland and Fort Lauderdale added last summer.
Chairman and chief executive, Alex Cruz, said: “We are delighted to be able to further grow our presence at Gatwick by adding extra frequencies and improving our timetable.
“We are also introducing several new destinations to the Gatwick programme, including Palma, Mahon and Gibraltar. These exciting new routes give our customers even more choice of destinations at competitively low prices.
“Over the last five years our operation at Gatwick has seen 40% more customers travelling, with passenger numbers increasing from 4.4 million to 6.2 million.
“According to CAA figures we are the most punctual of the three big short-haul carriers flying from London: at the 15-minute level and at Gatwick we outperformed easyJet’s punctuality by 13 percentage points and Ryanair’s by nine percentage points in 2017.
“We’ve also increased the number of routes we serve by more than 50%; in 2012 we flew to 48 different destinations, whereas now we serve 74. This undoubtedly highlights our commitment and focus to growing our Gatwick operation.”