Gatwick departures: today's flights and the deadlines that matter

Find your flight by airline and destination, then read across to the terminal column. The board shows the published schedule, refreshed through the day: use it to confirm the terminal and the timetabled departure before you leave for the airport. Gates and any delay change faster than a schedule can hold, so on the day the operating airline's app carries your gate and live status, and once you are inside the terminal the screens confirm everything. If your flight has already been delayed or cancelled, the Gatwick delays guide covers rebooking, your rights and compensation.

Meeting a flight instead of catching one? The arrivals board is the other half of this page, and the wider cluster (airlines, destinations, connections) lives on the flight information hub.

Gatwick's two terminals split the airlines, not the destinations, so the first fact to pin down is which one holds your check-in desk. easyJet, which operates roughly half of all flights at Gatwick, flies from the North Terminal only. British Airways, Ryanair, Wizz Air, Vueling, Norwegian and Jet2 all fly from the South Terminal. TUI Airways splits by flight number: BY flights use South, TOM flights use North. Among the long-haul carriers, Emirates, Qatar Airways and Singapore Airlines are at North, with Norse Atlantic and China Southern at South. The lookup for every carrier is on which terminal your airline uses; trust the booking confirmation over habit, because allocations move.

Turn up at the wrong terminal and the recovery is the free shuttle: 2 to 3 minutes terminal to terminal, running 24 hours a day, no ticket needed, about 10 to 15 minutes door to door once you count the walks. With hold luggage and a bag drop deadline inside the hour, go straight there and sort everything else afterwards; with hand baggage only, the mistake costs you a quarter of an hour.

Gatwick's own advice is to arrive at least 2 hours before departure. Check-in desks normally open around 4 hours before long-haul flights, 3 hours before European flights and 2 hours before UK and Ireland flights, and most airlines open online check-in well before that, so the productive move is to arrive with the boarding pass already on your phone and only a bag to drop.

The deadlines that actually strand people are the airline's. At Gatwick, easyJet opens bag drop 2 hours 30 minutes before departure and closes it 60 minutes before, with online check-in open from 30 days out until 2 hours before the flight. British Airways closes check-in 45 minutes before short-haul departures and 60 minutes before long-haul. Other carriers publish their own cut-offs, and they are printed on the booking, not negotiable at the desk. Desk zones, airline-by-airline windows and the self-service options are on the Gatwick check-in guide; cabin bag sizes and hold allowances live under baggage allowances.

Build in slack for the first morning wave, when the short-haul departures leave close together and the check-in halls and security lanes carry the day's heaviest load, and for school holidays, when the pattern repeats at scale. An off-peak midweek afternoon is a different airport.

Security at Gatwick is looser than the rules most travellers still pack for. Since March 2026, containers of up to 2 litres are allowed through, as long as they are not metal or double-walled, and laptops, tablets and other large electricals stay in your hand luggage. Coats, jackets and belts still come off. The full list of what can and cannot fly is on the Gatwick security guide, with the liquid detail (and the airports abroad that still enforce 100ml on your return leg) on the liquid rules page. Pack for the strictest airport on your itinerary, not the friendliest.

Two lanes exist beyond the standard queue. Fast Track security costs from £6 pre-booked and buys a shorter queue at peak, and a dedicated assisted lane sits by the Assisted Travel welcome desk in each check-in area, open to anyone who needs a slower, calmer pass through, with or without booked assistance.

Gatwick makes no boarding announcements. The departure screens are the signal: they show your flight number, the gate once it is allocated, and the moment boarding starts, so glance at them every time you pass one. Gates can change, which is why the airport prints none of this in advance and neither does this page.

The gate numbers tell you which pier you are walking to. In the South Terminal, gates 1 to 5 sit on Pier 1 and gates 10 to 95 on Piers 2 and 3. In the North Terminal, Pier 4 carries gates 45 to 55, Pier 5 gates 557 to 574, and Pier 6 gates 101 to 113, reached over the bridge that crosses a live taxiway with aircraft passing beneath. Some of those walks are long; when the screen says go to gate, go, and remember the airline deadline at the end of it: British Airways wants you at the gate at least 20 minutes before departure, and easyJet closes the gate 30 minutes before.

Both departure lounges spread over two levels once you are through security. If you are airside early, the pay-in lounges at both terminals sell a calmer seat, food and drink away from the concourse; the Gatwick lounge guide compares access prices and what each includes, down to the ones whose entry bundles Fast Track security.

The railway station is inside the South Terminal, a train calls on average every 4 minutes, and the North Terminal is a shuttle ride beyond it, which makes rail the default for most departures; every way to reach Gatwick compares the train, coach, bus, taxi and driving options honestly, with prices.

If someone is driving you, the forecourt drop-off charge is £10 for up to 10 minutes, then £1 per additional minute up to 20, with a £30 cap and a 30-minute maximum stay, camera-enforced at both terminals and payable by midnight the following day. The free alternative is a long stay car park: the first 2 hours cost nothing and the transfer bus runs every 10 to 12 minutes. The tariff, the payment routes and the Blue Badge exemption are on the drop-off charge explained.

Taking your own car, pre-book: advance prices run up to 60% below the drive-up tariff, and the drive-up long stay rate is £38 for the first day and £32 a day after that. Every parking option at Gatwick compares long stay, short stay, valet and the off-airport operators, with the walking and transfer times that the headline prices hide.