Gatwick Airport details constraints of constructing recently opened rapid exit taxiway

New Civil Engineer
Thomas Johnson
07 June 2024

Project leads at Gatwick Airport have unveiled the constraints of constructing its new recently opened rapid exit taxiway, Echo Romeo.

The new infrastructure opened in March and 56% of all arrivals used it in the first four days of operation.

Previously, incoming planes would often miss the first taxiway to exit the runway, which led to delays along the runway as the aircraft would have to travel to the next exit.

Contractor PJ Hegarty had to navigate multiple constraints to deliver the new taxiway. The works took the main runway out of service for periods, but because it is 24 hour airport this meant planes were landing on Gatwick's auxilliary north runway. This runs in parallel to the main runway, very close to the work site.

“It was a highly constrained environment, our operation was very intense,” Sillitto said.

“There’s the A380 coming past which actually caused a constraint where we had to pull back to do works - because of the wingtip clearance, we would have to pull the whole workforce back to clear the area.

Issues further arose from bad weather during the main construction works.

[Read more: Gatwick Airport details constraints of constructing recently opened rapid exit taxiway | New Civil Engineer]