A tale of two airports: Gatwick returns to profit while Heathrow remains in the red

2022 was neither the best of times nor the worst of times for London’s Gatwick and Heathrow airports. Both can point to a better 2022 compared with the previous two years. On March 16, Gatwick announced a £195.2 million profit in 2022 as passenger numbers topped 32 million, around 70% of the pre-Covid level. An hour or so drive to the north and west, London Heathrow had three weeks earlier reported a loss of £700 million despite around 62 million passengers in 2022. Heathrow’s loss was, all the same, a big improvement on 2021, when it lost £1.2bn. The gain