Jet2 is stepping into enemy territory at London Gatwick

When Jet2 announced its base at London Gatwick Airport (LGW) last week, it was clear that the airline, which also operates a holiday package business, would face stiff competition. After all, many, if not all, of Jet2’s 29 routes from the airport overlap with the carrier’s competitors’ networks during the peak summer season, and here is how that competition will stack up.

The launch of the LGW base “reflected the continued expansion of its footprint across the United Kingdom beyond its traditional northern strongholds,” Garth Lund, the Founder and Managing Director of Alpcor Aviation, said. According to the former Flair Airlines and Wizz Air executive, who now runs the airline consulting firm, this was just one of the new bases it has opened in London and the south of the UK since 2017.

There is no doubt that Jet2’s 29 routes from LGW are to some of the most popular leisure destinations from the UK to airports across the Mediterranean basin and southern Europe, including in Greece, Spain, Portugal, and others.

Last week, Steve Heapy, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Jet2, stated that the base’s announcement was an “incredibly exciting moment” for the airline, which, for many years, had an ambition to fly from LGW. It saw this as “once in a generation opportunity to accelerate our growth from the UK’s largest beach and city leisure destination airport.”

Seemingly, Jet2 wanted to fly even more routes from LGW, yet was unable to obtain additional slots. The initial summer 2026 coordination report from Airport Coordination Limited (ACL), a UK-based airport slot coordinator, indicated that Jet2 had requested 8,085 flight movements during the summer season, yet only received 5,280, and now has 5,295 slots for its LGW operations for summer 2026.

Jet2 plans to base five Airbus A321neo aircraft at LGW, with a total of six aircraft flying customers from/to the airport.

In August 2026, Jet2 has scheduled 79 weekly flights, resulting in 17,898 weekly departing seats on the 29 routes, according to Cirium’s Diio Mi. The route network, displayed below, is unsurprising, considering its business model and catering to the British leisure traveler.

Heapy himself pointed out that Jet2 knows “how much demand there is amongst customers and independent travel agents for us to operate our award-winning flights and holidays from London Gatwick, so it is fantastic to be able to share that we are here and ready to meet their travelling needs.”

Jet2 will serve most of the destinations once, twice, or three times per week, with the only exceptions being Alicante-Elche Miguel Hernández Airport (ALC, five weekly departures), Málaga-Costa del Sol Airport (AGP, four weekly departures), and Faro Airport (FAO) and Palma de Mallorca Airport (PMI), both operated 10 times per week.

The weekly schedule is relatively stable, with 11 to 12 departures per day, except on Wednesday, when Jet2 has planned 10 departures on that day, in August 2026.

At the same time, its routes largely mirror its competitors’ networks from LGW. For example, easyJet has scheduled flights on 27 out of the 29 routes that Jet2 has planned in August 2026, with the only two outliers being Girona–Costa Brava Airport (GRO) and Reus Airport (REU).

TUI Airways, another holiday package operator that has its own airline, also overlaps on 27 out of 29 of Jet2’s new routes, barring flights to Aktion National Airport (PVK) and Kalamata International Airport (KLX).

Do the frequencies overlap as well? Out of Jet2’s 79 weekly departures from LGW, airlines offer 401 flights on the same days that LGW’s newcomer has scheduled, with Jet2’s network schedules overlapping the most with easyJet (89.6%), TUI Airways (72.4%), and British Airways (62%).

Other airlines, including those that offer flights on a single route, such as KM Malta Airlines’ flights from LGW to Luqa Malta International Airport (MLA), have less than 10% of overlap. The only exception is Wizz Air with an overlap of 10.3%, which still comes out to only three routes.

The table below presents overlapping flights between Jet2 and its competitors from LGW. For example, August 2026 schedules from LGW to Gran Canaria Airport (LPA) showed that British Airways, easyJet, Jet2, and TUI Airways have scheduled flights on the route that month. With Jet2's flights departing on Wednesdays and Sundays, they overlap with two out of four British Airways' weekly departures, as well as easyJet's Wednesday departure, yet there is no overlap between TUI Airways and Jet2's flights since the former has scheduled departures on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. N/a represents routes that airlines do not fly at all, or have yet to schedule flights on.

The table's second page represents the percentage of routes that have overlap, whether it would be a single or multiple daily flights.

In addition to having extensively overlapping networks with some of its competitors at LGW, Jet2 could cannibalize its own sales from other airports in London. Cirium’s Diio Mi showed that in August 2026, Jet2 plans to have the same 20 and 29 routes from London Luton (LTN) and London Stansted Airport (STN), respectively. Jet2’s route networks from the two airports are displayed below.

Key Insights by Alpcor Aviation

1.  The launch of Jet2's LGW base reflects the continued expansion of its footprint across the UK beyond its traditional northern strongholds.  Since 2017, the airline has launched seven new bases, of which the majority have been in London and the South (Stansted, Luton, Gatwick, Bristol, Bournemouth).

2. Jet2's investment in its brand and commitment to delivering a great customer experience have positioned the airline well to continue growing in London and fill some of the gap in the leisure segment left by the demise of Thomas Cook in 2019 (and to a lesser extent, Monarch in 2017).  We expect Jet2 to continue to steadily grow its share of the UK leisure market going forward.

3. Jet2 has launched a tried-and-tested network of familiar markets - all of which it already has experience in operating from Stansted. easyJet and TUI Airways will be the most impacted by Jet2's entry into Gatwick, with 89.6% and 72.4% of their capacity overlapping with Jet2's new routes.

4. According to the Initial Coordination Report published by ACL, Jet2's slot allocation in Gatwick was facilitated by the addition of six hourly departure slots during the peak early morning hours.  Fortunately for the incumbent airlines, further growth for Jet2 in Gatwick will be constrained in the short term by slot availability.  We do, however, expect Jet2 to take full advantage of capacity growth if and when Gatwick's second runway comes into regular operation.

This post is part of a sponsored campaign for Alpcor Aviation. You can reach out to us for sponsorship opportunities at rytis@enginecowl.com.