While the largest and most well-known airport in London is undoubtedly London Heathrow Airport (LHR), the city’s second-most-important airport continues to grow rapidly and more and more passengers pass through the facility’s doors each year. Located in West Sussex about 30 miles south of Central London, Gatwick is, year-over-year, the second-busiest airport in the United Kingdom by passenger traffic and often ranks as one of the ten busiest in Europe.
Back in the 1920s, Gatwick opened for flights, with the first commercial services taking off in 1933. Since then, the airport has continued to grow and today has two large terminals. The facility operates a single runway, which has a length of over 3,300 meters. Although there are two runways at the airport, they are located too close together for both to be used simultaneously, significantly limiting the number of flights the airport can operate per hour.
Photo: Darren Baker | Shutterstock
Despite having its largest and most important hub at Heathrow, UK flag carrier British Airways
has a secondary hub at Gatwick and the facility serves as a major operating base for ultra-low-cost carrier easyJet. The facility is easily connected to central London by multiple different rail lines, including an express train that will take passengers directly to Victoria Station within a matter of minutes, from which all of the city is easily accessible.
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A popular airport for international airlines
Typically, when a metropolitan area has multiple major airports, one of these facilities pretty much only serves regional and domestic flights while the other is used as a major international gateway. A good example of this can be observed in Chicago, where O’Hare International Airport (ORD) serves as the airport’s principal international gateway, while the smaller Midway Airport (MDW) is pretty much just used by domestic carriers. Another good example of this phenomenon is found in Buenos Aires, where Ministro Pistarini International Airport (EZE) in the suburb of Ezeiza is served by most large international carriers, while Jorge Newberry Airfield (AEP) is reserved for regional flights within South America and domestic services.
In London, however, this is not the case. While Heathrow is the primary international airport, it is heavily slot-restricted due to severe capacity limitations. The airport has only two runways, and it can only accommodate around 650 daily flights, meaning that airlines looking to operate a new flight from the facility will need to purchase a slot pair (a takeoff and landing slot) from a different airline that currently holds one. This can cost millions, and it will often discourage carriers from adding additional routes to Heathrow or even serving the principal airport altogether.
London Heathrow Airport
- IATA/ICAO Code
-
LHR-EGLL
- CEO
-
John Holland-Kaye
- Terminals
-
Terminal 2 |
Terminal 3 |
Terminal 4 |
Terminal 5
As a result, operating flights to and out of secondary airports like Gatwick can be far more economical for airlines, especially those that are looking to sell tickets at a discount. United States-based airlines, which do have an extensive presence at Heathrow, also operate several services to and from Gatwick. In this article, we will take a deeper look at the flights operated by US airlines to London’s second-most-important airport.
Delta and JetBlue both operate nonstop services to Gatwick during the peak summer months
As of 2025, only two US-based airlines operate nonstop flights between their US hubs and London Gatwick Airport (LGW), likely because these carriers have extensive cash reserves and do not tend to have an issue when it comes to Heathrow landing slots. They have all been in the market for decades (except for JetBlue), and simply choose to operate flights with a larger aircraft when they see demand increasing instead of going out and adding another service from a different airport. That being said, two US airlines do serve Gatwick with nonstop flights, and they do so during the summer months to add much-needed peak season capacity.
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Delta operates once daily nonstop service from New York during the peak summer months
The first of these two carriers is Delta Air Lines, which operates a single nonstop daily flight during the peak summer months between its hub at John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK) and Gatwick. This service, like many flights across the North Atlantic operated by the airline, uses a Boeing 767-300 aircraft. 40 such aircraft are in Delta’s massive international fleet, and they each contain between 211 and 226 seats. The jets that Delta will be using for this route feature economy (Main Cabin), premium economy (Premium Select), and business class (Delta One) seating, the same as is available on all of the carrier’s flights to and from Heathrow.
Photo: Austin Deppe | Shutterstock
As one would expect, the airline’s single nonstop daily service operates on a fairly conventional overnight schedule in the outbound direction. Delta Air Lines Flight 62 departs from JFK at 9:15 PM each evening and touches down at Gatwick the following morning at 10:00 AM after seven hours and 45 minutes in the air. In the return direction, Delta Air Lines Flight 63 departs from Gatwick at noon, touching down back in New York at 3:05 PM after eight hours and five minutes of travel time. A thorough analysis of fares on the Delta website during June and July revealed that this Gatwick flight is on average roughly the same price as the airline’s Heathrow services, meaning that passengers should really just seek out whichever service best fits their needs and itinerary.
JetBlue also operates seasonal services from Boston to Gatwick
The other US airline to operate flights to Gatwick this summer will be JetBlue, which is set to fly nonstop from Boston Logan International Airport (BOS) to the airport using its Airbus A321neo jets. The airline will offer both economy and its Mint business class cabin on these flights. These aircraft are equipped with 160 seats, including 16 in the airline’s lie-flat business class cabin, 42 extra-legroom economy seats, and 102 standard economy seats.
As one would expect, these flights follow a conventional overnight schedule in the outbound direction. JetBlue Flight 2104 will depart from Boston Logan at 9:40 PM and is timetabled to arrive at 9:35 PM, after just shy of seven hours of flight time. In the return direction, JetBlue Flight 1926 will depart from Gatwick at 12:10 PM and is scheduled to arrive in Boston at 3:00 PM, after seven hours and 50 minutes of total flight time.
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It is important to note that, unlike Delta, which only allows you to book its daily service between the two airports, multiple different itineraries can be booked from Gatwick to Boston using the JetBlue website. This is because JetBlue allows you to book flights with their partner Icelandair through their website, something that does offer passengers additional flexibility. This flight also allows passengers to easily connect to British Airways flights leaving from Gatwick, a JetBlue codeshare partner as of June 2024, according to Travel Weekly.
JetBlue
- IATA/ICAO Code
-
B6/JBA
- Year Founded
-
2000
- CEO
-
Joanna Geraghty
- Country
-
United States
Other airlines do fly nonstop from Gatwick to the United States
While JetBlue and Delta are the only two US airlines that fly nonstop from Gatwick to the United States, multiple other carriers do operate these flights. Using codeshare and interline agreements, passengers in the United States can also use their miles to book travel on many of these services.
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British Airways flies year-round from Gatwick to Orlando International Airport (MCO) and also operates seasonal services connecting the airport to Harry Reid International Airport (LAS) in Las Vegas and JFK in New York. From Gatwick, British Airways also offers a host of connections to different destinations across Europe and beyond, primarily to leisure destinations as the airport mostly caters to vacation travelers due to its distance from the city’s major business districts.
Photo: Photofex_AUT | Shutterstock
Norse Atlantic Airways likely operates the most extensive US network from Gatwick Airport, serving five different US destinations with its year-round flights. From the secondary London facility, the airline flies to Las Vegas, Orlando, New York-JFK, Miami International Airport (MIA), and Los Angeles International Airport (LAX).