Car Hire Gatwick Airport

Gatwick is London's second largest airport and the second busiest airport in the UK, the first largest is Heathrow Airport. It is also the world's busiest single runway airport, and the world's 22nd busiest airport in terms of passengers per year. It is located in Crawley, West Sussex roughly 3 miles north of the town centre, about 28 miles south of London and approximately 25 miles north of Brighton.. Gatwick has a CAA Public Use Aerodrome Licence that allows flights for the public transport of passengers or for flying instruction.

With about 200 destinations the airport handled over 34 million passengers with about 263,363 aircraft movements in 2006. Charter airlines are generally not allowed to operate from Heathrow and many use Gatwick instead as their base. Many flights to and from the USA also use Gatwick because of the restrictions on transatlantic operations from Heathrow. The airport is a hub for British Airways and Virgin Atlantic and is a great place to pick up a car hire from Thrifty Car Rental.

In 1979, when the last major expansion took place, an agreement was reached with the local council not to expand further before 2019, but recent proposals to build a second runway suitable for large jets at Gatwick led to protests about increased noise and pollution and demolition of houses and villages. The government has now decided to expand Stansted and Heathrow but not Gatwick.

Gatwick's owners BAA have published a new consultation which includes a possible second runway south of the airport, but leaves the villages of Charlwood and Hookwood intact, north of the airport. Like many other airports, car parking is in limited supply at Gatwick. This is partly due to local planning restrictions.

Thrifty Car Rental are based in the lower level of the south terminal within the car hire lounge.