150602 Cubs
We had a brilliant evening at Gatwick Airport tonight hosted by Darren, Peter and Beulah. My grateful thanks to them, the crew of Gatwick Airport Fire and Safety (especially for letting us have a go with their pressure hose! – great fun!), the team in the Control room (all those buttons and video screens!) and anyone else who helped to make tonight one to remember. Thanks also to the parents who volunteered to help which is always very much appreciated.
We learnt an enormous amount of information about the airport. did you know that:
Gatwick became an aerodrome in the 1930’s. Before it was an airport the area was a race track. This was opened in 1891 and staged racing until it’s demise in 1940. The Grand National was run here for a number of years when Aintree was taken over by the MoD. The airport, as we know it, opened in 1958 with just 186,000 passengers in its first year of opening. The airport now caters for a staggering 38 Million passengers each year!
Flights from Gatwick go to over 200 destinations in 90 countries!
250,000 aircraft fly out of the airport each year. At peak times planes fly out at the rate of 60 each hour!
45 airlines operate out of the airport
Gatwick is the biggest single run-way airport in the World
Paul Masters. 2nd June 2015