British Airways (BA, London Heathrow) has announced it will boost its capacity at London Gatwick by some 15% compared to last year's summer on the basis of slots it has acquired from Monarch Airlines (1968). The airline will mainly expand its Mediterranean services targeted at leisure passengers.

The IAG International Airlines Group subsidiary plans to add around 150 weekly flights out of Gatwick in Summer 2018 on top of some 1000 weekly departures in the Summer 2017 schedule. British Airways will launch new services to each of Palma de Mallorca, Menorca Mahón, and Gibraltar, as well as increase frequencies of flights to Malaga, Faro, Tenerife Sur, Funchal, and Lanzarote.

British Airways acquired 20 slot pairs at Gatwick from Monarch administrators after the leisure airline had gone bankrupt in early October 2017. KPMG, the company which administers Monarch's bankruptcy, fought a court battle to be able to sell the slots at Gatwick and London Luton, worth an estimated GBP60 million (USD81.3 million) in total. Wizz Air UK scooped the slots at the latter airport.