Gatwick destinations: where the airport flies, and who flies there

The shape of Gatwick's route map follows its airlines. easyJet operates roughly half of all flights and paints the board with short-haul Europe from the North Terminal. British Airways, the second-largest operator, runs about 40 short-haul destinations through its Gatwick-based BA Euroflyer subsidiary plus a long-haul leisure network on a dedicated fleet of 12 Boeing 777s. Around them sit the low-cost names (Ryanair, Wizz Air, Vueling, Norwegian, Jet2 and TUI Airways) and a growing ring of long-haul hub carriers. The result: more than 220 direct destinations, weighted heavily toward European leisure, with the long-haul side rebuilding fast. For summer 2026 the airport reports around 60 airlines flying its biggest destination line-up since 2019.

Who flies a route decides where you check in, since the airline fixes your terminal, and the full carrier list with terminals sits on airlines at Gatwick. Today's actual flying, hour by hour, is on the departures board. And the map is set to keep growing: Gatwick holds consent to bring its standby northern runway into routine use around the turn of the decade, the biggest change to the airport's capacity in a generation, covered on the Northern Runway guide.

Over 100 European destinations across more than 30 countries make Europe the heart of the network, and the airport's own examples (Geneva, Faro, Milan, Madrid) sketch the spread: city breaks, beach corridors and ski gateways in one schedule. easyJet covers the widest map, from the Spanish costas and the Balearics through Italy, Greece, Portugal and France to the ski airports in winter. BA Euroflyer's roughly 40 short-haul routes lean toward the same leisure cities with a full-service cabin. Wizz Air adds central and eastern Europe, Vueling connects its Spanish network through Barcelona, and Norwegian covers Scandinavia.

The pack keeps growing: Jet2, long a northern-airports name, opened Gatwick as a base for summer 2026 with a 29-route programme of its own, and Turkish Airlines, SunExpress and Corendon link the Turkish coast and Istanbul. Spain, Greece and Italy carry the most seats in summer; in winter the weight shifts toward the Alps and the Canaries. If a European city has an airport and a beach, a piste or a cathedral, the odds are good that something at Gatwick flies there at least seasonally.

Seven city pairs have their own route guides, with the carriers, the terminal, flight times and the seasonality set out in full. In Europe those are Gatwick to Barcelona, the busiest of the lot and a year-round city break, the two Costa routes Gatwick to Málaga and Gatwick to Alicante, and Gatwick to Dublin, which sits inside the Common Travel Area so the border position differs from every other international route here.

More than 50 long-haul destinations fly direct, and the airport's summer 2026 schedule counts 57 long-haul routes. The Gulf and Asia are anchored by hub carriers flying to their home bases: Emirates to Dubai, Qatar Airways to Doha, Singapore Airlines to Singapore, China Eastern to Shanghai and Air China to Beijing, with Air India covering India and the airport naming Goa among its own destination examples. AirAsia X arrived with direct flights to Kuala Lumpur, one of a run of new Asian links the airport has been adding.

Africa and the Indian Ocean run through Ethiopian Airlines to Addis Ababa, Kenya Airways to Nairobi and Air Mauritius to Mauritius. Westbound, Norse Atlantic flies low-cost long-haul to New York and Orlando, plus Cape Town in winter, and has announced Bangkok and Phuket for winter 2026-27; British Airways points its Gatwick 777s at the Caribbean and North America, adding a fourth weekly Kingston service and boosting Bangkok, Miami and Jamaica for summer 2026. Long-haul leisure clusters in winter (the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean, southern Africa), so this section of the board changes more with the seasons than the European side does.

On the leisure side of long-haul, Gatwick to Cancún has its own guide, led by the flight time and with the hurricane season named, because that is the question the route actually raises.

The domestic network is compact, and its core is easyJet's: direct flights link Gatwick with Edinburgh, Glasgow, Belfast and Jersey. The Scottish routes carry the staple business and family traffic, Jersey is the Channel Islands link, and Belfast completes the set. British Airways also sells flights within the UK from Gatwick, and the exact domestic line-up flexes season to season, so check the timetable for your dates rather than assuming a shuttle-style pattern.

The two Scottish routes have their own guides, with the carriers, terminals, flight times and the comparison against the train set out in full: Gatwick to Edinburgh and Gatwick to Glasgow. Belfast has one too, and it matters more than most: Gatwick flies to both Belfast airports, easyJet on each, so the guide settles which one your flight actually uses.

What Gatwick does not have is a broad domestic web: no Manchester, Birmingham or Leeds links, because the train covers those corridors faster door to door than any flight could. For onward UK travel the practical answer is usually rail from the station inside the South Terminal, and for the rest of the country the coach network; both are covered under every way to reach Gatwick.

Airline timetables turn over twice a year, each spring and autumn, and Gatwick's leisure weighting makes the swing bigger than at business-heavy airports. Summer multiplies the Mediterranean corridors and adds long-haul leisure; winter opens the ski gateways and the winter-sun routes while quietly parking some summer-only corridors. A destination missing in January can be on sale for July, and new routes are announced through the year, so treat any fixed list, including this one, as a snapshot: the airline's own timetable is the source of truth for your dates.

If Gatwick does not fly somewhere direct, it usually connects there over one hub: the Gulf carriers cover Asia, Africa and Australasia over Dubai and Doha, Turkish Airlines connects a huge map over Istanbul, and Singapore Airlines reaches Australasia over Singapore. Booking a connection through Gatwick itself, with its two terminals and landside transfers, has its own rules, covered on the connecting flights guide. For everything else in the flight cluster, start at the flight information hub.