Air France Returns To London Gatwick With New Paris CDG Flights
Air France has announced its return to London Gatwick Airport (LGW) with new flights from Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG). Starting March 29, 2026, the carrier will operate two daily services on the route, marking the first time in six years that the airport pair has seen more than one operator. The new route is bound to feature in our Weekly Routes round-up.
The move comes as Gatwick continues to attract new and returning airlines, helped by a combination of slot availability, competitive airport charges, and strong passenger awareness. Since mid-November alone, the airport has seen announcements from Air Arabia (Sharjah), Condor (Frankfurt), Jet2 (new base), and Qanot Sharq (Tashkent), while Isles of Scilly Skybus has stepped in on the Newquay route after Eastern Airways’ collapse.
What We Know So Far
Air France Back At Gatwick After Nearly Two Decades
Air France has a long if intermittent history at Gatwick. Cirium Diio data shows the airline last operated there in 2007, when its regional subsidiary flew from Strasbourg. Over the years, the French carrier has also linked Gatwick with cities such as Bordeaux, Nantes, and even Paris, although Paris CDG–Gatwick was last served in 1992.
This time, Air France is coming back with a hub-to-hub link from CDG, timed to coincide with the switch to the summer 2026 IATA season on March 29. The schedule is built to support both local traffic and connections across Air France’s long-haul and European networks via CDG.
Route Schedule & Aircraft
From the first week of April, the airline plans the following typical twice-daily schedule (exact timings vary slightly by day):
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CDG → LGW
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Morning: around 09:15–09:25 arrival
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Afternoon: around 15:35–15:45 arrival
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LGW → CDG
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Late morning: around 10:25–12:40 arrival
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Early evening: around 17:10–19:25 arrival
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The flights will be operated by the Airbus A220-300, configured with 148 seats in a 2–3 layout. This is a noticeable upgrade versus the typical 3–3 narrowbody layout, offering:
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Pairs of seats on the 2-side that are ideal for couples
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A blocked adjacent seat for business class customers, maintaining the standard Eurobusiness model
The A220’s smaller capacity compared to larger narrowbodies should also help Air France keep load factors and yields healthy on what is a highly competitive short route.
Gatwick–CDG: A Busy, Low-Yield Market
The London Gatwick–Paris CDG route is currently flown exclusively by easyJet, which has served the 166 nm (307 km) sector since 2014. For April 2026, the latest schedule data shows easyJet planning up to five daily flights, making Air France the second carrier at last on the route.
The airport pair last had two operators in 2020, when Vueling also served the market. Rather than abandon the London–Paris flows altogether, Vueling shifted its operation to Orly–Gatwick, a route it continues to operate today, and which remains the only direct link between Orly and the London area.
According to the UK Civil Aviation Authority, Gatwick–CDG handled 728,444 round-trip passengers in 2023, which works out to roughly 1,996 passengers per day if evenly spread across the year. Almost all of this traffic was point-to-point, with very little connecting flow.
However, Cirium capacity data suggests that carriers collectively only filled around 80% of available seats, indicating overcapacity in what is otherwise a strong local market. On that basis, Air France’s entry might look risky—except that its strategy is quite different.
Rather than rely mainly on local demand, Air France can:
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Feed global connections via CDG (especially long-haul and Northern/ Eastern Europe)
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Use smaller, efficient A220s to keep capacity in check while chasing higher-yield connecting traffic
It also becomes one of the few continental European network carriers serving Gatwick, after the likes of Lufthansa ended its Frankfurt–Gatwick flights in 2024.
How Gatwick Fits Into Air France’s UK Network
With Gatwick added, Air France will significantly strengthen its UK footprint from Paris CDG. For April 2026, the airline is planning around:
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42 weekly flights to London Heathrow (LHR) – up to six daily
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27 weekly flights to Birmingham (BHX) – three to four daily
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25 weekly flights to Manchester (MAN) – two to four daily
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21 weekly flights to Edinburgh (EDI) – three daily
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17 weekly flights to Newcastle (NCL) – two to three daily
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14 weekly flights to London Gatwick (LGW) – two daily
In total, that gives Air France around 146 weekly departures from CDG to the UK, or up to 22 daily flights, accounting for roughly 41% of the CDG–UK market. By contrast, easyJet has about 159 weekly flights in the same market.
Strategically, Gatwick complements Air France’s broader reliance on KLM’s UK network via Amsterdam Schiphol, which currently includes 467 weekly departures to 18 UK airports. KLM does not serve Gatwick, so this new CDG–LGW link also fills a gap in the wider Air France–KLM Group’s London strategy.
As Gatwick continues to attract new entrants and expansions, Air France’s return adds a full-service, network-carrier option on a very busy corridor—one that’s likely to be popular both with leisure travelers and those connecting beyond Paris.
