Gatwick kicks off year of investment worth £240 million

These three infrastructure specialists will be called upon to work with the airport on capacity assessments as it analyses future growth from existing infrastructure.

The airport is half way through a £2.5 billion programme of transformation, designed to improve passenger experience at every touch point, while also facilitating essential growth for its airline partners and their cargo handling capabilities.

Gatwick currently handles 44 million passengers a year, way ahead of predictions, with significant growth coming from long-haul, combined with successful airlines such as easyJet and Norwegian choosing to make Gatwick their base.

Gatwick is already the most efficient single runway airport in the world and so growth must come from clever use of infrastructure, technology and efficient processes. The airport is striving to eliminate queues, which will help it to move passengers through the essential processing part of their journey with speed as a result of investment in process improvements and, where necessary, infrastructure.

Following a competitive procurement process Arup, Atkins and Jacobs were chosen because they closely matched the airport’s criteria, which looked at the organisations’ experience and expertise in providing specialist planning services such as capacity analysis and simulation modelling.

Gatwick’s newly appointed Chief Planning Officer Tim Norwood, commented: “The award of this framework sends a clear message that Gatwick is committed to continued growth, despite the constraints of the single runway and our existing infrastructure. We will always look for clever ways to improve passenger processes while being focused on what people want, and it’s important to work with specialists in this field to understand some of the critical flows of the airport.”

It is expected that these companies will be called upon to provide the following services during the five-year framework:

• Capacity assessments, including analysis of the processing capacity of the airports existing infrastructure
• Facility requirements, including infrastructure needed to meet continued traffic growth while ensuring passengers have a great experience when travelling from Gatwick
• Functional layout planning – for example, land use plans or concept development drawings
• Simulation modelling, including analysis of passengers flows, vehicles flows, baggage and aircraft flow modelling

The Airport Planning framework covers the entire range of airport infrastructure including terminals, aprons, airfield and all commercial, ancillary and support functions including landside roads and forecourts.