Gatwick airport, located in picturesque West Sussex, is ordinarily the UK's second busiest airport with flights to hundreds of destinations worldwide. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has left Gatwick struggling to control huge losses, of £1 million a day in 2021, as well as an 84% drop in passenger numbers compared to 2019. Now, Gatwick is getting ready to restart a reduced short-haul programme, of about half of its previous scale, for the Summer season. This is due to the government's "Living With COVID" plan, which ended all remaining travel restrictions in England and Northern Ireland earlier this year and will be extended to Scotland and Wales by the end of March. Jumping on the chance for recovery, Gatwick will be reopening its South Terminal on 27th March, and even has plans to bring into use a standby runway.Of course this podcast is completely free, as is my weekly travel email. You can sign up at independent.co.uk/newsletters. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.