Jet2 Expands London Footprint With Gatwick Base

British leisure carrier Jet2.com is set to deepen its presence in the London market with a new base at Gatwick Airport (LGW) from March 2026, increasing competition with easyJet and BA Euroflyer on short-haul sunshine routes from the capital.

The airline will launch operations with six aircraft. Five Airbus A321neos will be based at LGW and one additional aircraft positioned overseas to support the flight program. The move makes Gatwick Jet2’s 14th UK base and its third in the London area, joining London Luton and London Stansted.

Jet2 CEO Steve Heapy described the move as “a once-in-a-generation opportunity to accelerate our growth from the UK’s largest beach and city leisure destination airport.”

The group expects to incur initial promotional and staffing costs in the 2026 financial year ahead of the March launch, followed by the temporary use of three short-term leased aircraft in the 2027 financial year to free up A321neos for the new base. These will be replaced by additional A321neos from Jet2’s existing Airbus orderbook in the 2028 financial year. The carrier anticipates the LGW operation will become profitable from 2028-29 onwards.

The launch will begin with Tenerife flights on March 26, 2026, and will feature high-frequency service to major leisure markets including Alicante and Mallorca in Spain, Faro in Portugal and Rhodes, Greece. Jet2’s initial schedule at LGW also includes destinations in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Italy, Malta and Turkey.

Jet2 already served all 29 of the destinations from London Stansted during the summer 2025 season and 15 of them from London Luton.

Analysis of OAG Schedules Analyser data shows that Jet2 will compete directly with easyJet and BA Euroflyer on nearly all of its 29 new routes from LGW, intensifying rivalry on the airport’s core short-haul leisure network.

Jet2 will go head-to-head with easyJet on every route except Girona and Reus, both in Spain, and with BA on all but eight. EasyJet currently holds around 44% of all departure seats at LGW, followed by BA with 14%.

The announcement comes less than two months after the UK government’s approval for LGW’s £2.2 billion ($2.9 billion) northern runway project, which will allow the airport to operate dual runways and expand capacity to up to 80 million passengers annually.