Bus to Gatwick: the 24-hour Fastway network for Crawley, Horley and beyond

Local buses at Gatwick are run by Metrobus, and the core of the network is Fastway, a bus rapid transit system with sections of dedicated busway that keep the buses moving past the airport traffic. Three Fastway routes, the 10, 20 and 100, plus route 200, connect the airport with Crawley, Horley, Three Bridges, Pease Pottage and Redhill, and all four run 24 hours a day, every day. Singles start from £2.20 in the Metrobus app.

Know what the network is for and it serves you well. It is the way home for the airport's own workforce, the link for anyone staying in a Crawley or Horley hotel, and the local connection for the towns around the airfield. It is not the way to London: Gatwick sits outside the Transport for London network, so the capital is reached by coach or by train, both covered on their own pages. The rest of this page is the local detail.

Fastway 10 is the workhorse. It runs between Kilnwood Vale and Gatwick via Bewbush, Broadfield, Crawley town centre and the Manor Royal business district, every 7 to 8 minutes through the day on weekdays and Saturdays and every 10 minutes on Sundays. If you are heading anywhere along the Crawley spine, it is the route you will use, and at that frequency you turn up rather than plan.

Fastway 20 covers the longer arc, from Pease Pottage to Langshott via Broadfield, Crawley town centre, Three Bridges, the airport and Horley, every 20 minutes on weekdays and Saturdays and every 30 minutes on Sundays. Three Bridges matters for rail connections, and Horley is the closest town to the airport, a short hop north with a cluster of guest houses and hotels that serve early flights. Fastway 100 extends the network the other way, from Maidenbower through Three Bridges, Crawley, Manor Royal and the airport to Horley, East Surrey Hospital and Redhill, which makes it the route for the Surrey side. Route 200 rounds out the 24-hour set on its own alignment between Crawley and the airport.

Metrobus 22 is the route the Fastway numbers hide. It leaves the South Terminal forecourt and runs west into Charlwood, the village on the far side of the runway, and it is the only bus that connects the airport to it. The stops that matter are Charlwood, about six minutes' walk from the Gatwick Aviation Museum, and Ifield Road a little further on, about ten. For a long enough gap between flights it is the one genuine thing to do within a short ride of the terminal, and the museum's own car park is free.

One trap worth naming, because the museum's own directions get it wrong. They offer the 21 or the 22. The 21 does not call at the airport: it reaches Charlwood from Crawley on a different arc, so waiting for it at the terminal means waiting indefinitely. The 22 is the one to board. Check the current timetable with Metrobus before setting out, and do not plan to walk: the road is rural with no pavement, which the museum says itself.

The Fastway network never fully stops. All four core routes, the 10, 20, 100 and 200, run through the night, with the 10 dropping to roughly every 30 minutes overnight and the 20 to roughly every 45. For a 04:00 check-in shift, a red-eye arrival, or a night out in Crawley that outlasted the last train, there is still a bus, which is rarer at UK airports than it should be.

The overnight caveat is planning margin. Frequencies are lower and a missed bus costs you half an hour or more, so check the live times in the Metrobus app before setting out rather than trusting daytime habits. And a night arrival heading for London should not wait for a local bus at all: the coaches run close to around the clock from the same forecourts, and the coach page covers the overnight London options.

Local buses call at both terminals, on the forecourts. At the South Terminal the stops are on the lower forecourt, one level below the railway station, reached by following the bus signs down from arrivals. At the North Terminal the buses stop on the forecourt outside the terminal building. Each route serves a lettered stop, so glance at the timetable or the app for the stop letter rather than waiting at the first shelter you find; the coaches share the same forecourt areas, and a National Express stand is not a Fastway stop.

Two things the public buses are not. They are not the way between terminals: the free shuttle does that in about two minutes and runs constantly, so never pay a bus fare to switch buildings. And they are not the long stay car park transfer, which is the airport's own free bus from the long stay sites. If your airline's terminal is the open question, the terminal lookup answers it before you pick a stop.

Singles start from £2.20 bought through the Metrobus app, which is consistently the cheapest way to pay; contactless and cash singles bought on board cost a little more. Period tickets, daily, weekly and longer, cut the per-trip cost for anyone commuting to an airport job or staying nearby for a week, and the app carries the full range. Children and students travel at reduced rates.

Fares move with the operator's annual update, most recently at the start of 2026, so treat the figures here as the shape of the pricing rather than a promise, and check the Metrobus app or metrobus.co.uk for the live price before a trip where the pennies matter. Unlike the London network there is no daily contactless cap across the system, which is another reason the period tickets earn their keep for regulars.

The local buses hand over to other modes quickly once you leave the airport's orbit. For London, the road option is the coach: National Express to Victoria Coach Station from about £6 booked ahead, with easyBus, Megabus and FlixBus competing on the same corridor, all from the same terminal forecourts the local buses use. The coach page has the operators, stops and fares. The train from the station inside the South Terminal is the fast option, 30 to 45 minutes into central London.

For everything in between, every way to reach Gatwick compares bus, coach, rail, taxi and car on price and time. The short version for bus travellers: if your journey starts or ends in Crawley, Horley, Three Bridges or Redhill, Fastway is genuinely the right tool; for anywhere further, it is the first leg, not the whole answer.