ANNIVERSARY FOR GATWICK

Posted on 05/20/2016 | About Gatwick Airport, United Kingdom

The world’s busiest single runway airport celebrated the 80th anniversary of its first commercial flight on Tuesday. The flight from London to Paris was the first for London Gatwick Airport in 1936. At the time, Gatwick was technically an aerodrome, and it also served flights to Malmö, Amsterdam, Hamburg and Copenhagen.

The London to Paris fare was £4 - 5s. the equivalent of £160 ($305) today. The price included first class train fare from the London’s Victoria Station. 

The airport of today opened in 1958 with just 186,000 passengers passing through in its first year of operation.

In 2015 it became the first single runway airport to serve over 40 million passengers, moving a maximum of 55 flights an hour with flights to more than 200 destinations in 90 countries. 

Gatwick operates as a single runway facility but in fact it has a second runway that is used only when the first one is incapacitated. 

The commemorative first flight was on a Jersey Airways plane with a British Airways Ltd livery.   

Note: An aerodrome or airdrome is any place from where flight operations can take place. This can range from an airstrip in the middle of nowhere to a large commercial airport. 

Airports usually consist of a large area encompassing at least one runway, a helipad for helicopter landing, and buildings such as hangars, and terminal buildings. So while all airports can be referred to as aerodromes - not all aerodromes can be referred to as airports.