UK: Gatwick spends $1.5b to add 7m more passengers

London’s Gatwick airport plans to spend GBP1.11b on expanding the capacity of its two terminals by 7m passengers within five years. The world’s busiest single-runway hub will devote much of the cash to lengthening one of the piers at its North Terminal, used by airlines including EasyJet and Virgin Atlantic Airways, to accommodate eight more aircraft, according to a statement Wednesday. The northern site’s departure lounge will also be enlarged to accommodate more restaurants and will trial biometric auto-boarding technology. The South Terminal, which houses BA, will get a new domestic arrivals hall and baggage claim area, as well as extended hotels and parking. Gatwick is seeking to boost the capacity of its existing infrastructure to almost 53m travelers a year by 2023 from close to 46m passengers in 2017 after losing out to Heathrow in a contest to win government backing for the construction of a new runway.<br/>