London Gatwick name change

Luggage Goes Walkabouts! :diablo:

On your bags it will still have “LGW” anyone know what that stands for?

How do long haul passengers manage if the are flying to JFK, Newark or La Guardia. Or Roissy-Charles de Gaulle, or Orly? No mention of New York or Paris.

Charles de Gaulle is officially called “Paris Charles de Gaulle”, likewise with Paris Orly. JFK as far as I’m aware doesnt have a prefix, but on airport arrival boards it’s always listed as “New York JFK”.

Skymonster, I think you’re right. Airlines will continue to use the city prefix on their websites and route-maps. But it does have the potential to lose business, and it seems like a terrible way to spend all that money.

Whilst the airport may brand itself as just “Gatwick”, what name is actually shown on individual airline websites could be something different – airlines may chose to continue to use “London Gatwick” or maybe even show it as “Gatwick – London” (to use a regular Ryanair trick for out-of-town airports).

And as far as the major airline reservations systems (e.g. Amadeus, Sabre, etc) and the major travel sites are concerned, as long as “Gatwick” remains as designated a co-terminal with the other London airports, flights operating to/from there will continue to feature in any flight requests for London (e.g. using the LON city-code designator), and even on flight requests for LHR, STN etc.

Andy

How do long haul passengers manage if the are flying to JFK, Newark or La Guardia. Or Roissy-Charles de Gaulle, or Orly? No mention of New York or Paris.

Possibly, but if I want to go to buy a holiday or ticket to the UK, and more specifically London, I would either do it on line or through a travel agency.
Both would seek for you diffeernt fares and the different airlines to get you to London, the actual airport name is irrelevant, ie if buying a train ticket to the capitol, I don’t realy need to know it it arrives at Paddington or Kings Cross.
Also depending on the ticket brought, money spent, and airline used, you won’t have much of a choice on which airport you arrive at.

Agree that it is a huge amount of money to waste on an apparent name change that most won’t notice?

I agree with what many are saying here, namely that London Gatwick needs to be called that for the benefit of long-haul passengers who do not know London that well.
To my family in New Zealand, Heathrow is ‘London Airport’ and if they were routed to Gatwick, they would think they were going somewhere else.

Might be a trend, do you think Ryanair could follow this lead? 😀

Tourists from abroad want to book flights to London. They probably don’t know what the London airports are called. As much as we complain about these “London” prefixes, they make perfect sense, especially for Gatwick.

Bingo!

Yes people in England know Gatwick, frequent flyers know Gatwick and the near neighbours (Ireland, Scotland, Netherlands, Belgium) probably know Gatwick as well. But that is not the case for travellers from further away. Why do you think that every airport even remotely in the London area calls itself London ~~~. It’s very good marketing! Heck, at one time even Schiphol (in jest) called itself the third London airport!

I think most of us in this country call our airports by the name of where they actually are, but I imagine those in other countries would refer to them with the London prefix. I know when I flew back to Luton from Sofia it was only displayed on the board as “London”. I imagine dropping London from the name would cause them to lose a lot of business as many foreigners who want to travel to London have never heard of Gatwick, so won’t book a flight to there in the same way that for example most UK people wouldn’t book a flight to Gardermoen if it didn’t have Oslo written in front of it.

Spot on.
Tourists from abroad want to book flights to London. They probably don’t know what the London airports are called. For instance, if you were to book a flight with BA from Paris, and you could see options for “London Heathrow” and “Gatwick”, you’d book for the London one, and Gatwick would lose its business.
As much as we complain about these “London” prefixes, they make perfect sense, especially for Gatwick.

What on earth made them want to do that? :confused:

Perhaps because it’s nowhere near London:D

…and London Luton. Any more? Just ridiculous everyone trying to cash in on the name ‘London’:confused:

…and London City Airport.. ah that one is the only correct name:o

How do they manage if the are flying to JFK, Newark or La Guardia. Or Roissy-Charles de Gaulle, or Orly?

I think most of us in this country call our airports by the name of where they actually are, but I imagine those in other countries would refer to them with the London prefix. I know when I flew back to Luton from Sofia it was only displayed on the board as “London”. I imagine dropping London from the name would cause them to lose a lot of business as many foreigners who want to travel to London have never heard of Gatwick, so won’t book a flight to there in the same way that for example most UK people wouldn’t book a flight to Gardermoen if it didn’t have Oslo written in front of it.

And dont forget London Oxford Airport……..:confused::confused:

…and London Luton. Any more? Just ridiculous everyone trying to cash in on the name ‘London’:confused:

Isn’t Farnborough called TAG London Farnborough airport too?

And dont forget London Oxford Airport……..:confused::confused:

I’ve also always heard it called Gatwick…..never London Gatwick.

Just like Stansted they try and have us beleive it’s London Stansted

We even have London Southend and London Ashford (Lydd) but who on earth would ever think of them as that.

I’ve known it as Gatport Airwick or HBHAC (pronounced hubhac) – Hell between Horley and Crawley!

I’ve only ever known it as Gatwick, what’s the big issue?!
Also agree with RH, I’ve only ever known Heathrow as that, it’s probably a spotter thing as most people I know, media, etc only refer to these airports by their one name.