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Gatwick Airport

London Gatwick, also known as  Gatwick Airport , is the secondary international airport serving London, the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It is located near Crawley, West Sussex, England 29.5 mi south of Central London. In 2022, Gatwick was the second-busiest airport by total passenger traffic in the UK, after Heathrow Airport, and was the 8th-busiest in Europe by total passenger traffic. It covers a total area of 674 ha.

Gatwick opened as an aerodrome in the late 1920s; it has been in use for commercial flights since 1933. The airport has two terminals, the North Terminal and the South Terminal, which cover areas of 98000 m2 and 160000 m2 respectively. It operates as a single-runway airport, using a main runway with a length of 3316 m. A secondary runway is available but, due to its proximity to the main runway, can only be used if the main runway is not in use. In 2018, 46.1 million passengers passed through the airport, a 1.1% increase compared with 2017.

Gatwick is the secondary London hub for British Airways and the largest operating base for low-cost carrier easyJet.

Early years
The land on which Gatwick Airport stands was first developed as an aerodrome in the late 1920s. The Air Ministry approved commercial flights from the site in 1933, and the first terminal, "The Beehive", was built in 1935. Scheduled air services from the new terminal began the following year. During the Second World War, the airport was taken over by the military and was known as RAF Gatwick. After the war, the airport returned to its civilian capacity. Major development work at the airport took place during the 1950s. The airport buildings were designed by Yorke Rosenberg Mardall between 1955 and 1988.

In the 1960s, British United Airways (BUA) and Dan-Air were two of the largest British independent airlines at Gatwick, with the former establishing itself as the dominant scheduled operator at the airport as well as providing a significant number of the airport's non-scheduled services and the latter becoming its leading provider of inclusive tour charter services. Further rapid growth of charter flights at Gatwick was encouraged by the Ministry of Aviation, which instructed airlines to move regular charter flights from Heathrow. Following the takeover of BUA by Caledonian Airways at the beginning of the following decade, the resulting airline, British Caledonian (BCal), became Gatwick's dominant scheduled airline during the 1970s. While continuing to dominate scheduled operations at Gatwick for most of the 1980s, BCal was also one of the airport's major charter airlines until the end of the 1970s (together with Dan-Air, Laker Airways and British Airtours).

As a result of conditions imposed by Britain's Monopolies and Mergers Commission on the takeover of BCal by the then newly privatised British Airways (BA) at the end of the 1980s, Dan-Air and Air Europe assumed BCal's former role as Gatwick's dominant scheduled short-haul operator while BA continued in BCal's erstwhile role as the airport's most important scheduled long-haul operator. Following the demise of Air Europe and Dan-Air (both of which had continued to provide a significant number of charter flights in addition to a growing number of scheduled short-haul flights at Gatwick) in the early 1990s, BA (which it had purchased Dan-Air) began building up Gatwick into a secondary hub (complementing its main hub at Heathrow). These moves resulted in BA becoming Gatwick's dominant airline by the turn of the millennium. BA's subsequent decision to de-hub Gatwick provided the space for EasyJet to establish its biggest base at the airport and become its dominant airline.

Transatlantic flights to the United States
From 1978 to 2008, many flights to and from the United States used Gatwick because of restrictions on the use of Heathrow implemented in the Bermuda II Agreement between the UK and the US. The EU–US Open Skies Agreement, which became effective on 30 March 2008, led several airlines to downsize their transatlantic operations at Gatwick in favour of Heathrow. Continental Airlines was the second transatlantic carrier (after American Airlines) to leave Gatwick after it decided to transfer the seasonal Cleveland service to Heathrow on 3 May 2009.

US Airways, Gatwick's last remaining US carrier, ended its service between Gatwick and Charlotte on 30 March 2013. This left Gatwick without a scheduled US airline for the first time in 35 years. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Delta Air Lines announced its intent to launch service between Gatwick and Boston Logan in the summer of 2020, which would have made it the first US airline to service Gatwick since the withdrawal of the US Airways service in 2013, but the massive global travel downturn placed these plans on indefinite hold. In 2021, JetBlue became the first US airline to serve Gatwick since 2013, with services to New York–JFK and Boston.

Development since the 2000s
On 17 September 2008, BAA announced it would sell Gatwick after the Competition Commission published a report about BAA's market dominance in London and the South East. On 21 October 2009, it was announced that an agreement had been reached to sell Gatwick to a consortium led by Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), which subsequently also bought Edinburgh Airport in 2012, for £1.51 billion. The sale was completed on 3 December. In February 2010, GIP sold minority stakes in the airport of 12% and 15% to the South Korean National Pension Service and the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) for £100 million and £125 million, respectively. The sales were part of GIP's strategy to syndicate the equity portion of the original acquisition by issuing bonds to refinance bank debt. Although this entails bringing additional investors into the airport, GIP aims to retain management control.

The Californian state pension fund CalPERS acquired a 12.7% stake in Gatwick Airport for about $155 million (£104.8 million) in June 2010. On 21 December 2010, the A$69 billion (£44 billion) Future Fund, a sovereign wealth fund established by the Australian government in 2006, agreed to purchase a 17.2% stake in Gatwick Airport from GIP for £145 million. This transaction completed GIP's syndication process for the airport, reducing its stake to 42% (although the firm's extra voting rights meant it still controlled the airport's board).

In August 2020, the airport announced plans to cut over a quarter of its employees as a result of a planned company restructuring caused by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. The planned cuts will bring the total workforce of the airport to 1,900; before the start of the pandemic it was 3,300, however, an additional 785 jobs were cut earlier in 2020.

Ownership
BAA Limited (now Heathrow Airport Holdings) and its predecessors, BAA plc and the British Airports Authority, owned and operated Gatwick from 1 April 1966 to 2 December 2009.

The airport is owned and operated by Gatwick Airport Limited, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ivy Holdco Limited, owned by Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), among others. In December 2018, Vinci announced that it would acquire a 50.01% majority stake for £2.9bn, with a GIP-managed consortium of investors (Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, Australia's sovereign wealth fund and two public pension funds in California and South Korea) owning the remaining 49.9%. The sale was completed by the middle of 2019.

In August 2021, it was reported that Gatwick's operators were in talks with lenders following posting first-half-year net losses of £ 245m.

In September 2023, Margaret Ford, Baroness Ford was announced as the new Chair of Gatwick Airport.

Facilities
On 31 May 2008, Virgin Holidays opened the V Room, Gatwick's first lounge dedicated to their long-haul leisure travellers. On 25 January 2017, the lounge moved to the North Terminal together with the Virgin Atlantic Clubhouse as part of the airline moves that saw British Airways and Virgin Atlantic exchange their previous terminal locations and EasyJet consolidated in the North Terminal. On 9 April 2009, an independent pay-for-access lounge opened in the South Terminal. Gatwick also has a conference and business centre, and several on- and off-site hotels ranging in class from executive to economy.

The airport has Anglican, Catholic and Free Church chaplains, and there are multi-faith prayer and counselling rooms in each terminal. A daily service is led by one of the chaplains.

The Civil Aviation Authority Safety Regulation Group is in the Aviation House. WesternGeco, a geophysical services company, has its head office and Europe–Africa–Russia offices in Schlumberger House, a 124000 sqft building on the airport grounds near the South Terminal. The company had a 15-year lease on the building, scheduled to expire in June 2008. In 2007, WesternGeco reached an agreement with its landlord, BAA Lynton, extending its lease to 2016 at an initial rent of £2.1 million. Fastjet has its registered and head offices at Suite 2C in First Point at the airport.

Before the sale, BAA planned an £874 million investment at Gatwick over five years, including increased capacity for both terminals, improvements to the transport interchange and a new baggage system for the South Terminal. Passengers passing through the airport are informed about the redevelopment programme with large mobile barcodes on top of construction hoardings. Scanning these transfers information on the construction to the user's smartphone.

In the summer of 2013, Gatwick introduced Gatwick Connect, a free flight connection service to assist passengers changing flights at Gatwick whose airlines do not provide a full flight connection service. On 15 September 2015, the service was rebranded as GatwickConnects. It is available to passengers connecting on several major airlines.

Flight movements
Gatwick operates as a single-runway airport although it has two runways; the northern runway (08L/26R) can only be used when the main runway (08R/26L) is out of use for any reason. The UK Integrated Aeronautical Information Package gives the Takeoff Run Available (TORA) of its main runway (08R/26L) as 3,255 m when aircraft take off in a westerly direction (26) and 3,159 m when takeoffs occur in an easterly direction (08). The documentation lists the respective TORA for the northern runway (08L/26R) as 2,565 m in both directions. Nearly three-quarters of takeoffs are towards the west (74% over 12 months). Both runways are 148 ft wide; they are 656 ft apart, which is insufficient for the simultaneous use of both runways. During normal operations the northern runway is used as a taxiway, consistent with its original construction (although it was gradually widened).

In October 2018, the airport announced that it was "exploring how to make best use of its existing runways, including the possibility of bringing its existing standby runway into routine use". One scenario would see 08L/26R used for departing narrow-body aircraft only, while the longer 08R/26L would be used for wide-body take-offs and all landings; widening 08L/26R would also increase the centreline separation slightly. New technology could also be used to increase capacity on the main runway, and, in the longer term, the airport remains interested in constructing a new runway to the south.

In 2023, plans were announced to expand the second runway and make it operational for regular use.

The main runway uses a Category III Instrument Landing System (ILS). The northern runway does not have an ILS; when it is in use, arriving aircraft are radar vectored to intercept an RNAV (GNSS) approach, providing the aircraft is equipped and the operator has approval. This approach is satellite-based and is also available for the main runway. When an RNAV approach is not possible, assistance from the approach controller using surveillance radar, an "SRA approach" is available. This involves heading instructions and altitude callouts supplied by the Air Traffic Controller. On both runways, a continuous descent approach is used to minimise the environmental effects of incoming aircraft, particularly at night.

Night flights are subject to restrictions; between 11 pm and 7 am, noisier aircraft (rated QC/8 and QC/16) may not operate. From 11.30 pm to 6 am (the night quota period) there are three limits: Number of flights, a Quota Count system, limiting total noise permitted and no night QC/4 flights.

Security
The airport is policed by the Gatwick District of Sussex Police. The district is responsible for the entire airport (including aircraft) and, in certain circumstances, aircraft in flight. The 150 officers attached to this district include armed and unarmed officers, and community support officers for minor offences. The airport district counters man-portable surface-to-air missiles (MANPADS) by patrolling in and around the airport and a separate sub-unit has vehicle checks around the airport.

Access to airside portions of the airport is controlled and maintained by the airport's team of security officers, regulated by the Civil Aviation Authority. Brook House, an immigration removal centre of Immigration Enforcement, was opened near the airport on 18 March 2009 by the then Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.

Major airlines
The airport is a base for scheduled airlines British Airways (BA), EasyJet, Wizz Air, and charter operators such as TUI Airways. Gatwick is unique among London's airports in its representation of the three main airline business models: full service, low-cost and charter. As of October 2016, these respectively accounted for 26.6%, 61.3% and 13.1% of Gatwick's seat capacity.

By late 2015, EasyJet flew over 100 routes from Gatwick with a fleet of more than 60 aircraft. The airport is the carrier's largest base and its 16 million passengers per year accounted for 45% of Gatwick's 2013 total (ahead of Gatwick's second-largest passenger airline: BA, whose 4.5 million passengers comprised 14% of total passenger traffic in 2011–12).

EasyJet, BA and Norwegian Air Shuttle were Gatwick's three biggest resident airlines, although in late 2020 Norwegian announced the closure of its base at Gatwick. According to data from Airport Coordination Limited, these three airlines respectively accounted for 43.3%, 19% and 10.5% of airport slots in April 2018. According to this data, by April 2018 Norwegian had overtaken Virgin Atlantic as Gatwick's number one transatlantic airline by seat capacity, and BA's competitive response to Norwegian's growing commercial threat to its transatlantic business would result in Virgin's relegation to third position among the airport's transatlantic airlines during the 2018 summer timetable period. EasyJet, BA and Norwegian collectively accounted for 65.43% of Gatwick's total passengers in 2016 (EasyJet: 40.37% / 17.4 million; BA: 14.39% / 6.2 million; Norwegian: 10.67% / 4.6 million). As per Official Airline Guide (OAG) data for the week of 29 May 2017, their respective international departure seat capacity shares at the airport for summer 2017 are 42.1%, 15.4% and 9.4%.

In terms of passengers carried EasyJet and BA were also among the five largest airlines operating at Gatwick in 2010 (which also included TUI Airways and Thomas Cook Airlines at the time) and the top 10 in 2015. In terms of total scheduled airline seats at Gatwick in 2014, EasyJet accounted for 18.36 million, more than two-and-a-half times as many as second-placed BA (7 million) and nearly five times the number offered by third-placed Norwegian Air Shuttle (3.74 million). Using data sourced from the OAG Schedules Analyser, the following changes in the respective departure seat capacity shares of Gatwick's three biggest airlines occurred from 2010 to 2015: EasyJet's share increased from 26.1% in 2010 to 42.1% in 2015; BA's share dropped from 18.3% in 2010 to 15% in 2015; Norwegian's share rose almost three-fold from less than 3% in 2010 to 8.3% in 2015. EasyJet, BA, Norwegian, TUI Airways, Ryanair, Thomas Cook Airlines, Monarch Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, Vueling and Emirates were Gatwick's top 10 airlines by share of passengers in 2017.

EasyJet's acquisition of BA franchise carrier GB Airways in March 2008 increased its share of airport slots to 24% (from 17% in late 2007); the airline became the largest short-haul operator at the airport, accounting for 29% of short-haul passengers. By 2009, BA's share of Gatwick slots had fallen to 20% from its peak of 40% in 2001. By 2010, this had declined to 16%. By mid-2012, EasyJet had 45% of Gatwick's early-morning peak time slots (6 a.m. to 8:55 a.m.).

By 2008, Flybe was Gatwick's third-largest airline (accounting for 9% of its slots) and its fastest-growing airline. It became the airport's largest domestic operator, carrying 1.2 million passengers in its 2011–12 financial year on eight routes to destinations in the UK, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man. In March 2013, the airline announced that it would end operations at Gatwick, citing unsustainably high airport charges and increases in UK Air Passenger Duty. Flybe sold its 25 pairs of daily slots at the airport to EasyJet for £20 million. The latter's share of Gatwick slots increased to 44% in summer 2014; second-placed BA has held about 16% of the airport's slots since 2010. Following the sale of its Gatwick slots to EasyJet, Flybe continued to provide the scheduled service between Gatwick and Newquay, as a result of being awarded the contract to fly this route under a four-year Public Service Obligation (PSO), until the flight was subsequently moved from Gatwick to Heathrow Airport in April 2019.

Slots left by the US carriers (and the collapse of Zoom Airlines, Oasis Hong Kong Airlines, XL Airways UK, Sterling Airlines, Monarch Airlines, Thomas Cook Airlines, and Adria Airways) were taken by EasyJet, Flybe, Norwegian Air Shuttle and Ryanair. Many full-service airlines have established or resumed operations at the airport, including Air China, Cathay Pacific, China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue, Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines, Turkish Airlines, and WestJet. This is part of the airport's strategy to attract higher-spending business travellers (countering its dependence on European low-cost and charter markets), increasing year-round capacity utilisation by smoothing peaks and troughs in traffic. Gatwick's success in persuading these airlines to launch (or re-launch) routes to overseas destinations important for business and leisure travel was aided by a lack of comparable slots at Heathrow.

On 5 May 2020, Virgin Atlantic announced it would cease operations at Gatwick due to the COVID-19 pandemic. On 18 August 2020, Wizz Air announced a new hub at Gatwick Airport. Initially basing their A321 aircraft there along with additional commercial routes to Greece, Italy, Spain, and Malta operating from 22 October 2020, onwards.

In September 2021, the International Airlines Group announced that British Airways would terminate its short- and medium-haul base operations at Gatwick with immediate effect resulting in the cancellation of more than 30 routes. This came after labour negotiations regarding the handover of these operations, most of which were still suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic, to a newly formed budget subsidiary failed. British Airways continues to serve two domestic destinations, Glasgow and Manchester alongside their long-haul network from Gatwick.

British Airways has now resumed short-haul flights from Gatwick, as a new subsidiary which will be initially operated by British Airways, but will soon be managed under the trading name "BA EuroFlyer". The company expects this to happen by Autumn 2022.

City Place Gatwick
Gatwick's original terminal, the Beehive, is included within the City Place Gatwick office complex together with 1, 2 and 3 City Place. The complex was developed by BAA Lynton. Some airlines have had offices at the Beehive, including BEA/British Airways Helicopters, Jersey Airlines, Caledonian Airways, Virgin Atlantic and GB Airways. Other airlines which had headquarters on airport property (including office buildings on the site of, or adjacent to, the original 1930s airport) include British Caledonian, British United Airways, CityFlyer Express, Fastjet, Laker Airways and Tradewinds Airways.

Gatwick Aviation Museum
Situated to the northwest of the airfield near the village of Charlwood, there is a museum including original items and photographs from Gatwick's history, as well as a variety of military aircraft. It is open Friday, Saturday and Sunday all year round.

Terminals
The airport has two terminals, South and North, with 65 total gates. Both have shops and restaurants landside and airside, and all areas are accessible to disabled passengers. There are facilities for baby changing and feeding. Business travellers have specialised lounges. The North and South Terminals are connected by a 0.75-mile (1.21 km), elevated, two-way automated people mover landside. They are not connected once past security.

South Terminal
South Terminal has 32 gates with jetbridges and 7 remote gates. The official opening of the central pier of what is now the South Terminal, with 11 aircraft stands, was on 9 June 1958. Gatwick was one of the world's first airports with an enclosed pier-based terminal, which allowed passengers to walk under cover to waiting areas near the aircraft (with only a short walk outdoors). Another feature of Gatwick's new air terminal was its modular design, permitting subsequent, phased expansion. As passenger numbers grew, a circular satellite pier was added to the terminal building. It was connected to the main terminal by the UK's first automated people mover system. This replaced the original North Pier dating from 1962; the people mover was subsequently replaced with a walkway and travelators.

The South Terminal was temporarily closed from June 2020, and all airlines normally operating from this terminal were relocated to the North Terminal, owing to the sharp decline in passenger traffic as a result of the devastating impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. It fully reopened in March 2022. During the time it was not in operation, it was used as a remote filming location for the fourteenth series of the television show Taskmaster.

North Terminal
North Terminal has 31 gates with jetbridges including three which can support an Airbus A380. Construction began on the North Terminal on land previously earmarked for a second runway in the draft plan of May 1970. This was the largest construction project south of London in the 1980s, costing £200 million. In 1991 a second aircraft pier was added to the North Terminal. On 16 May 2005, the new Pier 6 opened at £110 million, adding 11 pier-served aircraft stands. The pier is linked to the North Terminal's main building by the second-largest air passenger bridge in the world, spanning a taxiway and providing passengers with views of the airport and taxiing aircraft.

A large extension to the terminal was opened by former Prime Minister John Major in November 2011.

Terminal assignments and rearrangements
As part of a seven-year strategic commercial partnership between Gatwick and EasyJet, the airport proposed several changes to individual airlines' terminal locations. These would see EasyJet consolidate all its Gatwick operations in the North Terminal, while British Airways and Virgin Atlantic would swap their terminals. Gatwick believes that these terminal moves improve the airport's operational efficiency and resilience, as the use of different terminals by EasyJet and British Airways reduces pressure on the North Terminal's check-in, security, boarding and ramp areas at peak times. In addition, a terminal swap by Virgin frees up lounge and gate space for BA long-haul passengers in the South Terminal and, unlike BA's current short-haul schedules, Virgin's long-haul schedules do not clash with EasyJet's busy schedule in the North Terminal due to the airlines' differing peak times.

It was confirmed in January 2015 that British Airways would move all its flights to the South Terminal in November 2016 while all EasyJet flights would be consolidated in the North Terminal at the same time. However, it was decided in February 2016 to postpone the agreed relocation of airlines until 25 January 2017, to avoid operational disruptions over the 2016–17 Christmas season and to give all parties involved enough time to deal with any unforeseen issues ahead of the February 2017 half-term holidays. The relocation of these airlines was accomplished by the revised date of 25 January 2017.

Airlines and destinations
The following airlines operate regular scheduled flights to and from Gatwick Airport:

Overview
In 2015, Gatwick became the first single-runway airport to handle more than 40 million passengers annually. By 2016, EasyJet accounted for over 40% of Gatwick's total passengers. When ranked by global passenger traffic, Gatwick is the 35th busiest internationally and the eighth busiest airport in Europe. Gatwick is the world's leading low-cost airport and until March 2017 had the world's busiest single-use runway, with a maximum of 55 aircraft movements per hour.

Traffic
Gatwick handled 186,172 passengers during its first seven months of operation after the 1956–58 reconstruction; the annual number of passengers passing through the airport was 368,000 in 1959 and 470,000 in 1960. Passenger numbers reached one million for the first time during the 1962–63 fiscal year, with British United Airways (BUA) accounting for four-fifths. The 1.5 million mark was exceeded for the first time during the 1966–67 fiscal year. This was also the first time more than half a million scheduled passengers used the airport. Gatwick accommodated two million passengers for the first time during the 1967–68 fiscal year and 3 million in the 1969–70 fiscal year, with BUA accounting for nearly half. By the early 1970s, 5 million passengers used Gatwick each year, with a record 5.7 million during the 1973–74 fiscal year. During that period, British Caledonian accounted for approximately half of all charter passengers and three-fourths of scheduled passengers. Within a decade annual passenger numbers doubled, to 10 million; they doubled again, to over 20 million, by the late 1980s. By the turn of the millennium, Gatwick handled more than 30 million passengers annually.

46.1 million passengers passed through Gatwick in 2018, an increase of 1.1% over the previous year. North Atlantic and other long-haul traffic recorded increases over the previous year of 24.4% and 12.7% to 4.04 million and 4.65 million passengers, respectively. UK, European charter, Irish and European scheduled passenger traffic recorded decreases over the previous year of 8.7%, 5.7%, 1.1% and 0.9% to 3.73 million, 2.88 million, 1.67 million and 29.11 million, respectively. Air transport movements decreased by 0.7% to 283,926. Cargo volume increased by 16.1% to 112,676 metric tonnes.

Compared with a year earlier, January to March 2019 passenger numbers increased by 4% to 9.675 million (an increase of 374,700 over January to March 2018). The following changes were recorded amongst individual passenger traffic categories: North Atlantic traffic +15.3% (784,200 passengers); European scheduled traffic +3.9% (5.649 million passengers); other long-haul traffic +3.2% (1.277 million passengers); European charter traffic +2.1% (710,900 passengers); Irish traffic +1.6% (412,000 passengers) and UK traffic -0.2% (841,700 passengers). Air transport movements increased by 3.3% to 62,392. Cargo volume increased by 7.2% to 27,390 metric tonnes, which was driven by a 7.5% increase in overall long-haul passenger traffic. The growing popularity of the GatwickConnects flight connections assistance service provided by the airport for self-connecting passengers was driven by additional passengers changing flights at Gatwick whose journey originated in Edinburgh (+80%), Jersey (+58%) and Belfast (+50%).

Ground transport
Gatwick has set goals of 40% public transport use by the time annual passenger traffic reaches 40 million (in 2015) and 45% by the time it reaches 45 million.

The airport is accessible from a motorway spur road at junction 9A of the M23, which links to the main M23 motorway 1 mi east at junction 9. The M23 connects with London's orbital motorway, the M25, 9 mi north; this provides access to much of Greater London, the South East and beyond, and the M23 is the main route for traffic to (and from) the airport. Gatwick is also accessible from the A23, which serves Horley and Redhill to the north and Crawley and Brighton to the south. The A217 provides access northwards to the town of Reigate. The airport has long- and short-stay car parks at the airport and off-site, although these are often full in summer. Local restrictions limit parking at Gatwick.

Rail

Gatwick Airport railway station is located adjacent to the South Terminal and has served the airport since 1958. It is located on the Brighton Main Line, and is mainly served by Southern, Thameslink, and Gatwick Express. It also receives an hourly service operated by Great Western Railway via the North Downs Line.

To the south, Southern, Thameslink, and Gatwick Express all provide direct connections to Brighton. Southern also provides connections to Eastbourne, Littlehampton, Bognor Regis, and Portsmouth Harbour.

To the north, Thameslink provides connections to London Bridge, Gatwick Express provides non-stopping connections to London Victoria, and Southern provides connections to both stations. Thameslink trains continue further north through the Thameslink Core to St Pancras International, Bedford, Peterborough, and Cambridge. Great Western Railway also provides an hourly service to Reading via Guildford.

The station provides single-change connections to Heathrow Airport and Luton Airport via northbound Thameslink services. Heathrow Airport can be reached by changing to the Elizabeth line at Farringdon, whilst Luton Airport can be reached by the Luton DART station at Luton Airport Parkway.

London Oyster Cards and contactless cards are accepted on all rail routes from Gatwick Airport into London.

Bus
National Express Coaches operates coaches to Heathrow Airport, London Stansted Airport and cities and towns throughout the region and country. Oxford Bus Company operates direct services to Oxford, and EasyBus operates mini-coaches from both terminals to Earls Court and West Brompton.

Local buses connect the North and South Terminals with Crawley, Horley, Redhill, Horsham and Caterham. Services are offered by Metrobus, including Metrobus's Fastway services operated on a partly guided bus rapid transit system which was the first of its kind to be built outside a major city.

Bike
Route 21 of the National Cycle Network passes under the South Terminal, allowing virtually traffic-free cycling and walking northwards to Horley and southwards to Three Bridges and Crawley. A goods-style lift runs between the terminal and ground level (labelled "Lift to Cycle Route") near Zone L.

Terminal transfer

The airport's North and South Terminals are connected by a 0.75 mi, elevated, two-way automated people mover track. The transit shuttle normally consists of two automatic, three-car, driverless trains. Although colloquially known as a "monorail", the shuttle instead runs on a dual, concrete track with rubber tyres. The transit is land side, and besides linking the two terminals also links the North terminal to the airport railway station.

The shuttle opened in 1987, along with the North Terminal, and initially used Adtranz C-100 people-mover cars which remained in operation until September 2009, by which time they had travelled a total of 2.5 million miles (4 million km). Gatwick began upgrading its shuttle service in April 2008, with a bus replacement service in place from September 2009. A new operating system and shuttle cars (six Bombardier CX-100 vehicles) were installed, and the guideway and transit stations were refurbished at a total cost of £45 million. The system re-opened on 1 July 2010, two months ahead of schedule; it featured live journey information and sensory technology to count the number of passengers at stations.

An earlier transit system, that opened in 1983 to link the main terminal (now the South Terminal) to the (then new) circular satellite pier, was the UK's first automated people-moving system. This system has since been replaced by a walkway-and-moving walkway link, although the remains of the elevated guideway are still visible.

Expansion proposals
Gatwick has been included many reviews of airport capacity in southeastern England. Expansion options have included a third terminal and a second runway; although an agreement not to build a second runway was made in 1979 with West Sussex County Council, that agreement expired by its terms after 40 years. Expanded operations would allow Gatwick to handle more passengers than Heathrow does today, with a new terminal between two wide-spaced runways. This would complement or replace the South Terminal, depending on expected future traffic.

Airport management's proposal for a second runway (south of the existing runway and airport boundary) was unveiled in July 2013. This was shortlisted for further consideration by the Airports Commission in December 2013, and the commission's final report was published in July 2015. Another proposal would extend the North Terminal south, with a passenger bridge in the area currently occupied by aircraft stands without jet bridges. Gatwick's draft master plan (released for consultation on 13 October 2011) dropped the passenger-bridge plan in favour of a mid-field satellite (next to the control tower) linking to the North Terminal as part of an expanded 2030 single-runway, two-terminal airport.

In late 2011, the Department for Transport (DfT) also began a feasibility study for a high-speed rail link between Gatwick and Heathrow as part of a plan combining the airports into a "collective" or "virtual hub", Heathwick. The scheme envisages a high-speed rail route parallel to the M25, covering 35 mi in 15 minutes. Trains would reach speeds of 180 mph, and passengers would need to pass through immigration (or check-in) only once. A 2018 proposal for a high-speed railway link to Heathrow, HS4Air, is currently being considered by the DfT. The proposal is part of a scheme to link the High Speed 1 and High Speed 2 railway lines and connect regional cities in Britain to the Channel Tunnel. The DfT will respond to the HS4Air plans in the autumn of 2018.

On 1 July 2015, the Airports Commission submitted its final report, recommending the expansion of Heathrow Airport as opposed to Gatwick. Whilst the commission recognised Gatwick's benefits and relatively fewer environmental consequences than Heathrow, they felt the economic benefits of Gatwick vs. Heathrow were not as great, nor as broad-ranging. Gatwick disputed the findings.

On 9 September 2021, GAL opened its first public consultation to carry out major works at the runway to increase its capacity from 64 million passengers a year to 75 million passengers a year by moving the northern "emergency" runway to the north to meet international standards for dual runway use. Airport management plans to use this runway only for take-offs by all but the largest aircraft. It hoped to receive approval in 2024, with the main works taking 4 years to complete, and 13 years to be fully complete. Works would also involve a new pier, hotels, terminal expansion and highway improvements including flyovers of the M23 Spur / A23 Airport Way at the terminal roundabouts. Planning permission for the runway realignment was formally requested in July 2023.

Accidents and incidents

 * 15 September 1936 – A British Airways Ltd de Havilland DH 86 on a night mail flight to Germany crashed on takeoff, killing the airline's chief pilot and two crew members.
 * November 1936 – A British Airways Ltd Fokker F 12 crashed in a wood 4.5 mi south of Gatwick on its final approach to the airport under a low ceiling in poor visibility, killing both pilots and seriously injuring the flight engineer.
 * 17 February 1959 – A Turkish Airlines Vickers Viscount 794D (registration: TC-SEV) on an international charter flight crashed in heavy fog at Newdigate, Surrey, on its approach to Gatwick after striking trees. Fourteen of the 24 on board died, and Turkish Prime Minister Adnan Menderes was amongst the survivors.
 * 5 January 1969 – A Boeing 727-113C (registration: YA-FAR) operating as Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 arriving from Frankfurt Airport, Germany, crashed into a house in Fernhill (near Horley, Surrey) in low visibility. The flaps were not extended to maintain flight at final-approach speed. 48 of the 62 on board died, in addition to 2 on the ground.
 * 28 January 1972 – A British Caledonian Vickers VC10-1109 (registration: G-ARTA) with no passengers aboard sustained severe structural damage as a result of a hard landing at Gatwick at the end of a short ferry flight from Heathrow, where the aircraft had been diverted due to fog at Gatwick. After touching down runway 08 and applying spoilers and reverse thrust, the aircraft became airborne again, bounced twice and landed heavily. This resulted in a burst front wheel tyre, a separated wheel and a crumpled fuselage (immediately in front of and behind the wings). A survey of the aircraft's damage revealed that its airframe was bent out of shape, requiring extensive repairs to restore airworthiness. Since the repairs were not cost-effective, the airline's management decided to cannibalise the aircraft for spare parts before scrapping it at Gatwick in 1975.
 * 20 July 1975 – A British Island Airways (BIA) Handley Page Dart Herald 201 (registration: G-APWF) was involved in a runway accident while departing on a scheduled flight to Guernsey. The aircraft lifted off from runway 26 after a ground run of 2490 ft and appeared airborne for 411 ft (with its landing gear retracting) before the rear underside of the fuselage settled back onto the runway and brought the aircraft to a stop. An investigation concluded that the landing gear was retracted before the aircraft had become established in a climb and the flap setting and takeoff speed were incorrect. Although the aircraft incurred substantial damage, none of the 45 occupants were hurt.
 * 29 December 2014 – A Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747-400 (Registration: G-VROM) suffered a loss of hydraulic fluid whilst en route to Las Vegas. Shortly after departure, an alarm prompted the crew to return to Gatwick, when they discovered that an improperly installed actuator had caused the right wing landing gear to not deploy. The aircraft successfully landed on 3 main landing-gear bogies and was returned to service on 11 January 2015.
 * 19–21 December 2018 – A major disruption to the airport was caused by reports of drone sightings close to the runway. The runway was closed and all flights were suspended for about six hours on 19 December. The airport reopened at 03:01 the next morning until another reported sighting prompted another closing about 45 minutes later. As of 00:15 on 21 December, the airport was still closed with about 110,000 passengers and 760 flights affected. Officials called the drone flying a "deliberate act of disruption", but did not classify it as terrorism. The army was deployed to assist the police in resolving the incident. The runway reopened with limited capacity around 06:00 that day. Authorities suspended flights again from 17:10 to 18:23 on 21 December. Later that day a man and a woman were arrested in connection with the incident; the pair were released without charge on 23 December with Sussex Police saying that they "are no longer suspects".
 * 26 February 2020 – a Titan Airways Airbus A321-211 reported engine surge after takeoff. A few moments later, the other engine stalled. The aircraft landed safely at Gatwick eleven minutes after takeoff. The Air Accidents Investigation Branch determined fuel contamination following defective maintenance had gone undetected for two days and caused the incident. Safety recommendations were made to the European Union Aviation Safety Agency, and changes were made by organisations including Airbus and the International Air Transport Association.

title: Gatwick Airport


text:
Talk:Croydon Airport

Untitled
Wasn't Gatwick the official London airport after Croydon but before Heathrow? Eclecticology 01:07 Dec 8, 2002 (UTC)

Heathrow was designated as London Airport as far back as 1946. Gatwick came very much later. Sorry it took me so long to reply. Dieter Simon 01:40 Dec 24, 2002

Croydon - Peace in our Time speech
Wasn't Heston the location for this speech - it is noted on the page for that aerodrome? Phileadie 12:29, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

 * Yes, it ceertainly was. Have put in a blockquote to that effect from one of the cited books. Dieter Simon 00:53, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

Coordinates
I just changed the lat/long data slightly as Google Earth is showing Croydon Airport slightly west of Carshalton station. However, the original data was accurate enough - I wonder why it is not being picked up correctly. Ricagambeda 23:27, 30 July 2007 (UTC)

Bob Learmonth
Oops, yes, you are absolutely right. It should have been Bob Learmonth all along. Thank you for changing it. Dieter Simon 00:15, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

Two original airfields?
Referring to Croydon Airport, the article says:

 * It originated as two adjacent World War I airfields - Beddington Aerodrome, ..., and Waddon Aerodrome ...

and

 * At the end of that war, the two airfields were combined into London's official airport

But Beddington (according to the coordinates in the article Beddington) is situated to the north of the railway line from West Croydon to Sutton, which must surely pre-date Croydon Airport, whilst Waddon and the remains of Croydon Airport are to the south. So these statements seem to raise more questions than they answer:

 * 1) Where exactly was Beddington Aerodrome
 * 2) How were the two airfields combined
 * 3) Did planes have to cross the railway

etc. -- Chris j wood (talk) 11:58, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

 * from At the end of the war, the decision was taken to combine the two airfields, and to make them the 'Air Port of London' - the capital's official customs airport, the point of entry or departure for all international flights. Croydon Airport (or Croydon Aerodrome, as it was at first called) opened on 29 March 1920. The airport's origins as two separate airfields meant that it was physically divided by Plough Lane: the two halves were linked by a level crossing, where road traffic had to be halted at first by a man with a red flag, and later by a gate. if that helps. MilborneOne (talk) 12:43, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Booking Hall - TimeZone Tower
The octagonal structure in the booking hall, I believe, was a departure board showing up to 16 departure times - not timezones in different areas of the world. The boards underneath each clock showing the destinations. Source for this was a tour of the building. Also if you look at pictures of the tower you soon realise that the clocks are not aligned on minutes as they would be if timezones. Phileadie (talk) 19:23, 5 June 2011 (UTC)

Pollard and Bebb
The article refers to these two men as being members of Special Operations Executive, but this organisation was not created until July 1940, some four years later. Some clarification is required. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.201.79.102 (talk) 09:39, 28 September 2011 (UTC)

 * The relevant organisation involved was probably MI6. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.4.57.101 (talk) 12:17, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 4 external links on Croydon Airport. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added tag to http://airfields.fotopic.net/c1748097.html
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20110605123243/http://www.croydon.gov.uk/democracy/councilnews/874261 to http://www.croydon.gov.uk/democracy/councilnews/874261
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071008204935/http://www.croydonairport.org.uk/ to http://www.croydonairport.org.uk/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080724170047/http://www.tomcampbellblack.150m.com/ to http://www.tomcampbellblack.150m.com/
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071008204935/http://www.croydonairport.org.uk/ to http://www.croydonairport.org.uk/

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Passenger statistics, 1938 to 1960
Does anyone know here where such data could be obtained?--Antemister (talk) 18:50, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes.., you need to look up the website and contact the historic archives of the airport via email. Such data is unlikely to be online but there will almost certainly be some in their archives. They are very helpful. Whispyhistory (talk) 22:03, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Although I thought about a published source, that seems to be also a good hint, thank you!--Antemister (talk) 22:23, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
 * There is also this Flight Global Archives.Whispyhistory (talk) 06:49, 2 November 2018 (UTC)
 * Know Flight Global, but it is of little help here, because it contain only scattered stattiscal data. But it sometimes provided me with further data.--Antemister (talk) 09:49, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Talk:Croydon Airport


text:
User talk:Zoe/archive 1

Hi Zoe,

Most people here are friendly, but be prepared to have your work edited and corrected or improved regularly, even if it is good already. It's the nature of the project. Don't take disagreements too personally, and just walk away from any that get too harsh, even if you are right. It will save you frustration, believe me!

Most of all, have fun! --Dmerrill

Thank you. I'll try not to make too many mistakes. Zoe

Please don't try too hard. It might get in the way of your writing articles. :-) --LMS

Hi Zoe - welcome to the team! I agree with Larry (LMS) - do your best, and don't worry about making mistakes that much. We all learn from each other and we all work together pretty well (most of the time!). The one thing we all have in common is that we all just want to see a great encyclopedia. You'll get to know everyone pretty soon, and judging by whqt I've seen of your work so far, you'll fit it just fine. Why not make yourself a /contributions page? - warm regards - ManningBartlett

Hello Zoe, My first introduction to Wikiepedia. I added the title of Koestler's autobiography with the perhaps inappropriate "wonderful" adjective. Your edit is accepted and appreciated, I was a little uncomfortable with the word, even though it's one of my favourite books. Have you read it?

Gabe

Hello there, welcome to the 'pedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. If you need any questions answered about the project then check out Help or drop me a line. BTW, I am very impressed with the quality of your editing, fact checking and cross-linking. Great work! Cheers! --maveric149

Zoe, WRT your work on city pages, we have a naming convention for cities as many localities worthy of mention in encyclopedias share names (for instance, Melbourne, Florida and Melbourne, Victoria). An example is Georgetown, which as well as the capital of Guyana is also the name of a major city near Washington D.C. Therefore, the Georgetown page should be shifted to Georgetown, Guyana and a disambiguation page pointing to the various Georgetowns put there in its place.

I understand that, but I was linking from the "national capitals" page, which isn't disambiguated, so I was just creating new pages from there. I guess I need to do REFER or whatever it's called, but I'm not sure how to do that. -- Zoe

Zoe - don't worry, I'll fix the Georgetown thing. Nice work on the capitals you have done. :) Cheers User:MMGB

It's not your fault Zoe -- whoever made the list in the first place was careless about this issue. It's also sometimes difficult to know if a particular city name is shared by several (or more) different cities. What I do when I'm not sure, is look up the city name on Google while excluding the name of the country and see if there are other notable cites also known by the same name. For example. Of course, one would never make a disambiguation page out of truely famous cities such as Paris just because some small city in Texas has the same name (in these cases a link to Paris, Texas at the bottom of Paris is more than enough). BTW, whoever makes a disambigution page is also responsible for fixing any broken links that may result (in other words, any links to Georgetown would have to be fixed to go directly to the right page). Hope this helps! --maveric149

 * Hey that was ME, ya mongrel :) Actually, when I made the original page (which took forever) the last thing on my mind was disambiguation issues, back in those days we didn't have enough articles to have even contemplated it! Nice to see how times have changed :) - User:MMGB

Hi Zoe, good work on all the capital cities! One request: if you create a new article on a city, also create a redirect for "city, country". This isn't a real Wikipedia naming convention, but some people tend to link that way. Then again, if you don't do it, I will make the redirects... Greetings, jheijmans

 * One more note - when you have a link to an article as the first word of a sentence, there's no need to make a link like Sugar In fact, all articles start with a capital letter, so no need to do this. jheijmans
 * Minor clarification: Articles are displayed with their first letter capitalized but are in fact case-insensitive -- so it doesn't matter if you capitalize the first letter or not when linking. --maveric149
 * Minor clarification to clarification: Article titles really do all start with a capital letter. But, the first letter of links to articles is case-insensitive, so it doesn't matter if you capitalize the first letter or not when linking. --Brion VIBBER

Hi again Zoe: Well you are certainly making your presence felt - really top-notch work on the world capitals! One question - what's your source for the "Masero" spelling (as opposed to "Maseru")? I've been to Lesotho and I've never seen the "Masero" spelling before - it's always "Maseru". However, in deference to your skill and effort, I didn't want to rush in and change anything. Also, if you are planning on sticking around here (which I certainly hope you do), consider signing up for Wikipedia-L. Warm Regards Manning

 * Thanks. I think I may have mistyped the REDIRECT.  Can somebody correct that for me?  I can't delete the page.  Sorry. -- Zoe

 * Don't apologise - I've done a lot worse than that in my time :) You go on with whatever you're doing and I'll do the hack editorial stuff - I'm too jetlagged to do anything else. Cheers User:MMGB

I do appreciate your work here; I don't mean to be rude (though sometimes I am anyway). At first when I started writing for wikipedia, my contributions would get edited severely and I'd take offense. Now I think that's just the natural result of writing for a site with a lot of users, all of whom can edit any article they see that they think needs editing. Having said that, I do still think that plot summaries should go before awards in movie entries, if only because it's been that way in all of the books I have on movies (Ebert, Maltin, Videohound, etc.) Call it a force of habit. I don't think we have a policy for how to write about films, though I'm glad we're getting enough film entries that the issue has come up. :-)

Anyway, I won't insult you by going through and changing them all, though I may change ones I run across in the future (in a few months or a year or a decade ... if they haven't all been expanded greatly by then anyway). Again, thanks for all your work, and I aplogize for being cranky. Best, Koyaanis Qatsi, Tuesday, July 9, 2002

Yes, please don't be discouraged by other people reworking your articles -- it all comes out right in the end. I really appreciate your contributions on the movie articles. -- Anon.\

Zoe, sometimes the greatest contribution is simply to start an article on its way. Someone will see it in Recent Changes, remember that they have something to say about it, then someone else sees it and so on. I would never have thought of doing an article on Trader Horn, but when I saw that you had done one, I remembered that I had seen it on vacation once and was inspired to add to the article. Then I noticed that Duncan Renaldo, who played the Cisco Kid was in it, so there was another link, which might lead someone else to write something about O. Henry who wrote the Cisco Kid. By that time, you may be adding something to someone else's article, and so the great wheel goes on, having been started rolling in this case by you. Ortolan88

Zoe, disambiguation help badly needed! If there is a movie and a novel with the same title (and they are the same story, of course) I think they should be discussed in the same place and at the same time. The Dickens titlesA Tale of Two Cities and A Tale of Two Cities (1935) had me wandering all over the place editing the wrong thing, and as you add more movies based on books you will be creating more confusion. Sometimes the book is obscure and the movie is famous, so the article can be mostly about the movie with just a mention of the book, but with A Tale of Two Cities we have a routine movie, and a pretty old one at that, competing for the article title with a very important novel. The model you used in Les Miserables where everything was discussed in one place, seems to be a good one to follow. Ortolan88, Thursday, July 11, 2002

Oops, there are two Les Miz articles too. Les Miserables covers everything (including 7 or 8 film versions) while your Les Miserables (1935) covers only one movie. This really doesn't work. I'm sorry. Ortolan88, Thursday, July 11, 2002
 * I don't see anything wrong with having separate articles on the book and films so long as everything is cross-linked. Generally I prefer to start with the most famous work, go into some detail on it and adaptations of it, summarize that info at a non-disambiguated title when a certain length is reached and then have more in-depth discussions on particular adaptations in disambiguated articles. However, I don't fault people for making lists after stubs (like in A Tale of Two Cities) and then make a couple of those items stubs too -- all they are doing is just planning ahead to the way the article will be when it is fully fleshed out. Ortolan, please stop being overly critical of other people's style of contribution -- nothing you mention above is in violation of any policy. Furthermore, the project is only 30% toward its goal of at least 100,000 articles -- everything here is still in alpha development. Please keep that in mind. --maveric149

I think Zoe is doing a great job on these movie articles, and I too was puzzled by the comments about disambiguating these same name movies. Eclecticology
 * I thought I did a good job of disambiguating. I CREATED the pages for the novels A Tale of Two Cities and Les Miserables,and aded entries for the movies so that we can disambiguate the movies from the books.  I hardly think my entries on the books are gold, in fact they're little more than stubs, but I wanted to make separate entries for the movies and the books.  the movie pages ARE disambiguated by the dates. And thanks for everybody's encouragement.  -- Zoe

Hey Zoe, I just moved Academy Awards/Best Picture to Academy Award for Best Picture. I also changed all the links to the former to point to the latter--so in any future entries you don't have to pipe the link, you can just type it the way you'd expect to. Cheers, Koyaanis Qatsi

Yes, user:Eclecticology and I moved a lot of the Academy Awards pages. I'm also trying to correct all the links so they point to where the articles are now and none are left pointing to the redirects. I'll be working on it more tomorrow (sunday); I've had enough of it today. :-) Koyaanis Qatsi, Saturday, July 13, 2002

If I have the history right, you included the phrase "firestorm of protest" in the Current Events entry for Sahelanthropus tchadensis. Where was this? I saw some suggestions that it might not be a direct human ancestor, but nothing that I'd characterize as a firestorm, in the articles I read--Science, Nature News Update, the BBC, New Scientist, and Newsday. I've been tracking this, and working on the article; I'm leaning towards removing that comment, leaving in that it's unclear whether this is a human ancestor, a chimp ancestor, both, or neither. Vicki Rosenzweig
 * If I remember correctly, it was in CNN. Another French scientist said it was clearly a female gorilla and nothing to make a big deal over.  I can't find the article now, though.  Sorry.  --Zoe
 * I hope you don't mind me stepping in, but I think the article you're talking about may be here instead. Cheers, Koyaanis Qatsi
 * That sounds like a followup to the article I read, but I know I didn't read Yahoo originally. That does sound like the info I was first posting about.  -- Zoe

Hi there Zoe - I wondered why you were changing links such as Florence to Florence, Italy. Because Florence already redirects to Florence, Italy, it's fine to leave links like that as they are. The purpose of the disambiguation policy used in these cases is to make it really easy to link, so that people use Florence rather than the longer Florence, Italy and still have it linking to the page they most likely want.

Thanks for all your hard work on the 'pedia on the films and everything else - I'm hoping that you might write some more great articles if you spend less time with the links :-). Enchanter

 * The reason why I'm doing it is because if you leave it at Florence, it sends you to the disambiguation page, and then you have to click again to get to Florence, Italy. Following the same process as was done for Rome, Italy.  I didn't want to do it, but I've seen people complain when you change a page and don't redo all of the pages that link to it.  It's the first time I've done this, don't think I'm going to do much more of it.  :-) -- Zoe
 * Now I'm getting confused Zoe - Florence already redirects to Florence, Italy, not Florence (disambiguation). That's how it ought to be too, in line with, for example, [[Paris redirecting to Paris, France, with a comment at the top of Paris, France taking you to the disambiguation page.Enchanter
 * OK, well, then I'm confused, too. Did somebody change what I did last night?  It doesn't really matter, it's all done now.  :-)  But see the comment at the top of this page about disambiguation of city names -- I'm just doing what I'm told.  -- Zoe

Hey Zoe -- Just so you know it really isn't necessary to seek out each instance of something like Florence and make it link directly to Florence, Italy when Florence already redirects there (one or two would have been fine to make sure at least something directly linked to it). Just trying to save you some time -- (of course there is nothing at all wrong with what you did). Power to the wiki! --Maveric149
 * Oh, thanks, now that it's all done. ;-)  -- Zoe
 * LOL -- BTW thanks for creating the other two elements lists. --Maveric149

Markup or style note: Names of movies, books (including series), record albums, magazines, are italicized. Names of short stories, songs, and magazine articles are enclosed in quotes. Mad Magazine, "99 Luftballoons". Ortolan88
 * Go for it. -- Zoe

I have been going for it. I was hoping you would too. :=)  Ortolan88

Hey, Zoe! I will say the same thing to you that JHK said to me a while ago. "Welcome to Helga's world." :-) Danny

 * It does seem to be different from ours, doesn't it? :-) -- Zoe

Please do not use the characters ????????????????????????????????. They may look like something meaningful to you, but to the rest of the world they are all the same: wickets, boxes, or slugs. If you must use em dashes, etc., type out the entity reference in HTML; at least then it will look right in Clearlyu, even if it doesn't look right in the normal ISO-8859-1 fonts. -phma

 * Well, none of those look meaningful to me but the apostrophes. I had copied the Basil items out of a document I've written in Microsoft Word, so I guess the apostrophes don't translate, though like I said, they look fine in my browser.  Next time I'll change them.  -- Zoe

Thanks for adding the novelis, actor, and director details on The African Queen's page. I frequently forget to check if a work's based on a novel (which should IMO always be mentioned) but in this case I forgot quite a lot more too. Sheepishly, --KQ

Are we using (year film) or (year movie) to disambiguate? Or does it matter? I just wrote an article on Chinatown and backed out of it because I didn't want it on the wrong page. I guess I'll go ahead with it and move it later if need be. --KQ

 * Not a problem. Just being pedantic.  I think I've mentioned that a few times.  ;-)  Maybe if we just created Chinatown (movie)?  Or is there more than one?

Oh, well my question was actually whether to "film" or "movie." I've been adding the year also because we can't check the IMDb for films that haven't come out yet--e.g. Stray Dogs, The Postman, The Man Who Wasn't There, and countless others examples I've seen and forgotten. There are supposedly rules in place to prevent exact duplication of titles among movies with different sources but apparently they don't work. New dupes come out all the time, and shouldn't. Oh well. Do you think it's overkill? --KQ
 * It's probably overkill if there is no such film now, tho IMDb does it. I was disambiguating by using the year when there was more than one movie with the same title, but I suppose YMMV.  -- Zoe

What's YMMV? Mav pointed me to Naming conventions, which I should have thought to check to begin with. I'll drop the years when I can't find a second exact title match on IMDb (in accordance with the above). Thanks,  --KQ

 * YMMV = Your Mileage May Vary. Meaning, it's your own choice what you want to do.  -- Zoe

I am getting more and more p***ed off. See Talk:Mithril. -- Zoe

Hi Zoe,

I hope you decide to shrug off the negative interactions and stick around.

I am preparing a proposal that Wikipedia shift to a text review approach that would leave current material intact as the primary article until a couple of logged in users have reviewed a proposed change version and ok'd it as improved.

Do you think this approach would reduce friction currently resulting from others editing or reviewing your work?

Do you think the exciting immediacy of a Wiki, i.e. seeing editing efforts published immediately to the internet would be diminished?

Other comments or pros and cons as you see them?

Thanks! user:mirwin

I don't know ... I think that delay thing would be really frustrating to a lot of people. Besides, it isn't the fract that people were changing my work -- as I keep saying, I don't care about that, as long as they're accurate. But it was the fact that my work was looked down upon as unworthy of being in the 'pedia. -- Zoe
 * Ok, I have taken notes. Thanks for responding so quickly!  Personally I think all contributions are valuable.  I think it is impressive that you have created sufficient depth and breadth with regard to LOTR, or other fantasy subjects, that people feel other subjects are treated too lightly.  If you decide to take a break, then thanks for the all work to date and I hope you come back soon. 8) mirwin 01:05 Aug 19, 2002 (PDT)

Thanks! ;-) Danny

I love your work, Zoe. If anybody gives you a hard time, let me know. Now that I'm a sysop, I carry a bit more weight. --Ed Poor

Well, that was weird. I was working, and all of a sudden, my preferences got changed, and I realized that I was no longer logged in. It looks like my cookie got deleted or something. I had to re-log in, and now everything is fine. -- Zoe 15:17 Aug 15, 2002 (PDT)

 * Mea culpa! As per general agreement on the mailing list that www.wikipedia.org is preferred over www.wikipedia.com, I've set the software to link to itself using the .org address. Cookies aren't smart enough to know that the two domains are the same thing, so you have to log in again now that we're in .org-land. (If there are any other problems, I can change it back in a jiffy.) --Brion 15:21 Aug 15, 2002 (PDT)

 * No, seems to be okay. I'm glad I found out, I'd hate not to be able to find the 'pedia next time I come here.  :-) -- Zoe

Zoe, Thanks for stripping certain stuff from "N.m.". I have my own strategies for this but principally this centres about gratefully welcoming her comments and incrementally removing them a few days later. It was on my to do list for this morning. This strategy usually keeps the frau from the door and preserves the integrity of "N.m." without it turning into edit wars. She only crosses our threshold occasionally so it is a minor inconvenience. Moppping up during the middle of the night is a strategy which I guess works well for you. rgds user:sjc

Hey Zoe, thanks again for all your work on the movies. I really appreciate it. :-) --KQ

 * You're welcome. It's kind of fun, actually.  Something that has really surprised me when researching these early films is how many of them were written by women.  I had always thought that movies were a man's field in the early days.  -- Zoe

- Zoe - not that's its a big deal at all, but the convention on naming movie entries that have multiple movies with the same title is [{name of movie} (YEAR movie)]. So for example Titanic (1997 movie). I do, however, kinda like the way you are titling these entries though -- Scarface (1932) actually has a chance of being directly linked whereas Scarface (1932 movie) has little chance (and this does not present an ambiguity issue so long as nothing of significance named "Scarface" was created in 1932). If you really think your way is best I will support the idea on the mailing list as a change of the convention. Cheers! --mav 15:25 Aug 26, 2002 (PDT)

 * I don't have any preference one way or the other, but I've been doing it this way for a while now, as I hadn't seen the convention. If you want to go with the changes you've made, we're going to have to go back and change quite a few.  -- Zoe

 * Keep on doing it your way -- I think it is better. I'll take care of the process that is needed to change the convention. --mav

 * Sorry, it looks like the list doesn't want to change the convention. So please use the (YEAR movie) conention when more than one movie shares the same name. I will take care of moving the (YEAR) format pages later. --mav

 * OK, no problem. -- Zoe

Hey Zoe, you should relogin under "the indefatigable Zoe". ;-) --KQ

 * Or "the obsessive Zoe" :-) -- Zoe

Hey, Zoe, why don't you move the chat from your user page to your user talk page? Thanks for the careful editing work. Also, you seem like the sort of person who would keep an interesting personal web page. Do you? --John Knouse

 * Thanks, no, not really. I've never gotten around to creating one.  :-)  -- Zoe

I am geting majorly frustrated. I DO NOT mind when people edit my articles. That's what they're for. But when the instructions for uploading images say they should be uploaded as .pngs, and they ALL get changed to .jpgs on somebody's whim, then why should I even bother? -- Zoe

Please read the image policy and upload page again--photographic images should be JPEG. Drawings and other iconic images should be PNG. We've been very consistent about that, and there are good reasons for it. Besides, what's your problem with other people doing all the work for you? --LDC

 * What do you mean, "all the work"? It would hae been nice if you had at least EXPLAINED why you were converting my pictures.  And this is NOT what was said in the Mailing List.  -- Zoe

OK, I suppose politeness isn't my strrong suit. By "work" I mean just doing the conversions themselves. I don't know what I might have said on the mailing list that was confusing, but the reason behind to policy is very simple: it produces the smallest file (and therefore quickest download for wiki users with slow modems) with good image quality to use formats designed and and optimized for the kind of image. JPEG's compression was designed and optimized for photographs; PNG's compression was designed and optimized for icons (though it's actually higher quality than JPEG for photographs as well--it just produces huge files for them). --LDC

Yes Zoe, please don't be frustrated. I too am short on politeness and sometimes my intentions are golden but my delivery is terrible. Same for LDC me thinks. It would be a great loss to the project if you left. Please don't. --mav

Zoe: see Talk: Neeltje-Jans

--

Hi zoe- Marc Bonfils IS his full name!!! I only linked his suranme as I've already put a link to Bonfils somewhere else quercus robur

Please stop putting links on the List of dukes of Norfolk. You are creating errors, because the articles about people with those names are about different people. Don't put a link on this page unless you first create an article for it to go to AND disambiguate with any existing article. Also, please don't link to Norfolk, England, because it's essentially a disambiguation page for all dukes of Norfolk, whether it's Norfolk, England, or not. For that reason, it needs the info about the Bigods to disambiguate them from the real dukes. Thanks. -- isis 2 Sep 2002

 * Why can't the name be disambiguated on the name page?   I didn't link anything to Norfolk, England.  -- Zoe

It can -- that's why I said it's okay to put the link in if you take care of disambiguating it first, but look at what you did to John Howard to understand the problem. -- isis 2 Sep 2002

 * I see nothing wrong with what I did. Add something to the John Howard article indicating there are several people by that name and disambiguated them on that page.  -- Zoe

209.226.107.51 doesn't want to sign in and use a real name, so I can't respond to him/her on his/her user page, so I'm forced to do it here. You seem to be spending a lot of your time going through the Wikipedia and trying to make lots of anti-American statements, but your attempt to make the US look bad in East Timor isn't going to fly. -- Zoe

I'm just curious, does that mean the Wikipedia will be censored of all references to even well-documented facts that "make the U.S. look bad"? zadcat 20:24 Sep 2, 2002 (PDT)

 * Hardly. -- Zoe

209 here. I don't need to attempt to make the US look bad in East Timor. The US did that itself. I gave you a source. I have yet to see you refute that source. Are you saying you will remove things that "make the US look bad", regardless of whether they're completely relevant and true?

I'm not "anti-American", whatever that means. For all you know I *am* American. I have American friends. Many of the writers I greatly respect are American.

Anyway, I guess there's no point to this. You're probably the true believer type who will continue to stick to your story no matter what.

If you want to put in a paragraph that begins, "The United States is accused of ..." I can live with that. -- Zoe
 * Sorry for butting in, but what's going on? I don't see any problem with adding it, regardless of whom it makes look bad; we're not a PR machine but an encyclopedia and, if I may speak so loftily, we've got a higher obligation than to make people look good.  If it's true, it's true and to hell with it.  :-)

 * Having said that, 209 should know we are still an encyclopedia, so the NPOV still applies. I imagine there must be some controversy around the arms sales, which should be characterized and explored if we're going to mention them.  Zoe, is lack of that plus the lack of attribution what disturbs you, or is there something else?  --KQ

 * Mainly it was because 209 came in from out of nowhere and started doing nothing but writing anti-American info on several different pages. He/she obviously came in with an agenda.  I have to admit I don't know the details of the East Timor situation, but when some stranger with no login starts gong all over the Wikipedia trying to make the United States get bad, I have a problem. -- Zoe
 * That's reasonable enough; I just saw the conflict on this one page and not on the rest. I don't know details of it either, and if I had noticed the rest I probably would have been suspicious also (like Mav, below).  Also like mav, though, I probably would have noted why I reverted any changes on the article's talk page.  Best,  --KQ
 * Good point. I did make my objections in the comments, but didn't say anything on the Talk page.  -- Zoe
 * I missed that part, sorry. (had the blinders on, I guess).  I'm not trying to stir up trouble, I promise.  :-)  --KQ
 * I just want to be on the record that I would have done pretty much what Zoe had done if I was the one who discovered 209's apparently POV additions. Although I would have laid down a quick statement why I did what I did on the appropriate talk page at the first sign of disagreement. But that's just me. --mav

-- Me again. I wish I could link to the section 655 reports (legally required reports to congress on weapons sales), but I can't find them online. Given that the data from human rights organizations comes from these reports, we'd really have to write "The United States accuses itself of...". Frankly, I'm amazed you dispute this. I haven't heard even staunch defenders of America's Indonesia policy dispute it -- they usually say it was necessary to defend against Communism or something along those lines.

For now I'll put it as "human rights organizations say that" and add a note asking for someone to come up with the 655s, or a report from credible sources derived from the 655s. If they can find that, I think it should say "sold xxx million in arms, according to the American government's own public reports."

 * That's fine. I can live with that.  -- Zoe

Hey Zoe, I'm planning to put maps into all the CA county articles that show their locations within the state. I put a sample in Los Angeles County; I'm hoping for a little feedback before I save and upload 58 of them and discover they're all wrong and/or hideous. :) If you have any thoughts on the matter, please let me know. --Brion

You don't have to shout; I did get new glasses recently and I'm wearing them. :-) Anyway, take a look at Talk:Decatur County, Alabama.  --KQ

 * ??? When did I shout? Sorry if you took something I said as shouting, but I'm at a loss as to what that might have been.  ???  -- Zoe
 * In the edit summary. More of a, uh, rapping on the desk, I guess ("that's the CITY of Decatur, Alabama, which is in Morgan County, Alabama").  Don't mind me, I've been up far too long and it's obviously time for me to log off (though I haven't done much here this weekend).  You haven't done anything wrong, sorry.  Cheers, --KQ 05:52 Sep 15, 2002 (UTC)

I just ran into your entry Julius Caesar (1952 movie). According to IMDb this movie was one year later in 1953. I was tempted to change this as necessary, but since you may have had some reason for your entry I thought it best to get your comments first. Eclecticology 19:32 Sep 18, 2002 (UTC)

Sorry if I made you upset with that whole announcement about the counties wikiproject. I didn't know you were working on counties and such. I've been focusing my work on cities and counties and so forth and I wanted to make sure all of the work was to standard and consistent. I was going to create a WikiProject for cities as well and move the stuff from the U.S. States one regarding cities. Any thoughts or objections?

With regards to the cities, I ran into a new naming problem. I posted an explanation at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Cities. Since you post a lot of cities to the county lists I'd like to get your thoughts on the issue. -- Ram-Man

These are great articles you're adding on the senators. --KQ

Zoe, I downloaded all sorts of data from the U.S. Census Bureau on some demographic and geographic items. Anyway I compiled the county information (for all the counties in the country) and put them in a spreadsheet. I thought maybe you'd like to look at them. I modified Baldwin County, Alabama with the new information. Since you do a lot on counties I thought maybe you'd want the information. I put it on my web site at "http://www.rit.edu/~dlr1225/census-counties.xls" (Excel Spreadsheet) and "http://www.rit.edu/~dlr1225/census-counties.sxc" (Openoffice Spreadsheet). I will be completing a similar list of all the cities, towns, townships, etc. in the U.S. soon. -- Ram-Man

 * Thanks, Ram-Man, that must have taken forever to download! -- Zoe

 * It wasn't so hard with a DSL connection. Thank goodness!  Anyway, maybe you will want to hold off on it.  I have to learn SQL for work, so I am going to put all the data into some mySQL databases and autogenerate the articles.  That way all that I will have to do is paste them in (or at least I will post the stuff online so others can access it!) -- Ram-Man

Hi, I'm writing this to you because you have shown a consistent interest in movies. This comes from a brief exchange that I just had with KQ that involved verifying a basic fact about a movie. We all run into these little questions of fact that we would like checked out but we don't know who is the best person to ask. A request on the article's talk page may never be noticed, and "recent changes" has been just too big to be communicative. KQ mentioned the various mailing lists that have been set up for Nupedia; to say that these have been inactive does not do justice to what hasn't been happening there. The specific list at http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/filmtv-l is relevant to our topic. What I'm suggesting is that Wikipedians could take over the list as a vehicle for checking out these little questions. If you are iinterested please go to the site to subscribe. Eclecticology

 * Great idea, E. I just did that.  -- Zoe

I finished putting the data in a SQL database and I generated everything on Autauga County, Alabama under the "Geography" and "Demographics". I can do this for every state, county, and (eventually) city. Can you look over it and see if there are any formatting concerns before I go ahead and generate all the articles? Thanks! -- Ram-Man

 * What exactly do you want me to look for, just the format or something else? --

 * Well formatting is most important, but also if you think some of the content is stupid or any other thoughts you might have.. those are important too. Just take a look and tell me what you think.  -- Ram-Man

Thanks for your attention to the Corinth page. I do have some concerns about whether there really is a Corinth in Perry County Illinois. Two Illinois Corinths do appear at http://www.placesnamed.com/c/o/corinth.asp but they both have the same lattitude and longitude. This often happens when a community straddles the county line, but here Perry and Williamson counties do not have a common border! If you can shed any light on this mystery, it would be appreciated. Eclecticology

 * Well, I don't know from personal experience, but I got the information from http://www.placesnamed.com/c/o/corinth.asp; I don't know where they got their information. -- Zoe

 * FWIW, the [Perry County website http://www.perrycountyillinois.net/sub69.htm] makes no mention of a Corinth. --Brion 23:53 Sep 26, 2002 (UTC)

 * Might as well delete the entry, then. {shrug} -- Zoe

I know I said this before, but I think all the work you're doing on the movie entries is awesome. :-) --KQ

Hi Zoe, I see that you are trying to make some sense of User:AntonioMartin's entries...Good luck! I have put a note on his talk page and another in a talk page, but he hasn't even aknowledge them...If you want more challeges, just review his contributions link....--AN

LOL. Thanks, I'll do my best. :-) -- Zoe

Good work!....I'm just dying to see if you feel like tacklin Carlos Monzon...Another contributor called it "an article uncontaminated by a drop of NPOV" :)--AN

Ack! LOL -- Zoe

Hey Zoe, just a reminder that the "move page" button in the sidebar is an easier and less painful way to move/rename a page. --Brion 22:16 Oct 1, 2002 (UTC)

 * Thanks, Brion. For some reason, that button hasn't been available for me till recently, so I haven't ever used it.  :-)  -- Zoe

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Zoe, may I ask why you are moving Canadian cities around? I thought the idea was that we would leave cities be unless they had to be disambiguated. (I doubt there are other cities named "Quebec City" or "Winnipeg", at least for the present...) Long city names are a hassle to link to, and "Quebec City, Quebec" sounds dorky IMHO. I think they're OK where they are, although redirect pages in the form city, province would be useful. - Montréalais

I'm redirecting because it's inconsistant all over the place. Some times it's with the province, sometimes it isn't. In places like Quebec City, which has a lot of pages linked to it, I only did a redirect, not a move. -- Zoe

 * Huh? The article is now at Quebec City, Quebec. To my knowledge that's a move.

 * I don't think it that important that the names were inconsistent before. Sometimes they were City, Province for a reason, such as Sydney, Nova Scotia being so in order not to conflict with Sydney (Australia). But the rest were just Cityname. Do you think this is really necessary? I mean, as long as all the links work. You know what they say about a foolish consistency.

 * To show that it makes a difference - a lot of articles are well served to link to City, Province, Canada. It would be very irritating to link to City, Province, Canada . Sure, there are redirects, but it's preferable to avoid a redirect, and it would also be better to leave new city entries as just City when there's low risk of having to disambiguate (Moose Jaw, 100 Mile House, Happy Valley-Goose Bay, and so forth). -- Montréalais

 * What a shame. We have to do that for all the American cities, and there are certainly more of them than there are Candian cities.  This was what was agreed to -- federal states such as the US and Canada would use city, state or city, province.  -- Zoe

 * Can you give me a link to see where this was decided, please? - Montréalais

 * http://www.nupedia.com/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-September/004552.html

Besides, I'm done now. -- Zoe - It would probably be useful for you to have sysop powers. You tend to come across a lot of newly created pages that are pure junk and should be deleted on sight. All you have do to is ask the list. Chow! --mav

 * EEK! I don't know if I want to be a sysop.  "With great power comes great responsibility."  Thanks, I'll think it over.  :-)  -- Zoe

title: User talk:Zoe/archive 1


text:
World Conference against Racism

The World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) is a series of international events organized by UNESCO to promote struggle against racism ideologies and behaviours. Five conferences have been held so far, in 1978, 1983, 2001, 2009 and 2021. Founded after World War II and the Holocaust as a dependent body of the United Nations, UNESCO started as soon as it was created to promote scientific studies concerning ethnic groups and their diffusion in public opinion to dispel pseudo-scientific rationalizations of racism. One of its first published works was The Race Question in 1950, signed by various internationally renowned scholars.

1978 conference
The 1978 World Conference Against Racism was held in Geneva, Switzerland. A major focus on the conference was South Africa's apartheid policies of racial segregation and discrimination. This included condemnation of Israel–South Africa relations (in particular economic and military cooperation), a request that the United Nations Security Council consider "imposition of comprehensive and mandatory sanctions" on South Africa and other "racist regimes of southern Africa", and other criticism of apartheid in South Africa. There was also a declaration and program of action which resulted from the conference which condemned racial superiority, racism, and racial discrimination, and called for educational resources to promote "mutual understanding between all human beings and demonstrate...the...basis of ethnic and racial equality", among other statements.

1983 conference
The 1983 World Conference Against Racism was also held in Geneva, Switzerland.

2001 conference
The 2001 conference was held in Durban, South Africa, under UN auspices, from 31 August until 8 September 2001. Former Irish president Mary Robinson, then the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, presided as secretary-general.

Entitled "World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance", the conference was discussing unfair treatment of one group against another. Significant time was focused specifically on Israeli treatment of Palestinians, treating violations of human rights and genocide in other parts of the world secondarily.

The 2001 meeting was marked by clashes over the Middle East and the legacy of slavery, and coincided with attacks on Israel and anti-Israel demonstrations at a parallel conference of non-governmental organizations. The U.S. and Israel withdrew midway through the conference over a draft resolution that, in their opinion, singled out Israel for criticism and likened Zionism to racism. The European Union also refused to accept wording by Arab states criticizing Israel for "racist practices."

Also in the conference, African countries, led by Nigeria and Zimbabwe, and African-American NGOs wanted individual apologies from each of the countries responsible for slavery, recognition of it as a crime against humanity, and reparations called as such. The Europeans pulled together behind the UK and the best the Africans could get was a call for support for the New African Initiative, debt relief, funds to combat AIDS, the recovery of stolen government funds transferred to the West by former dictators and their cohorts, and an end to the trafficking in people. But the word 'reparations' did not survive.

2009 conference
The 2009 World Conference Against Racism was held in Geneva, Switzerland. Canada, Israel, the United States of America, New Zealand, Germany, Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, Poland and, after some initial skepticism, Australia announced they would not participate in the conference.

Mark Mardell of the BBC news reported: On the Monday the Conference was to begin, Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini (who was until last year the European Commissioner for security and justice) had told the Italian newspaper Il Giornale that Europe's failure to agree on a common approach was "a very serious mistake, because it shows our inability, despite all the words uttered in this connection, to come up with at least a lowest common denominator on a basic problem: namely the struggle against discrimination, on behalf of which we in Brussels so often speak out".

Frattini continued, "I should imagine that a compromise was preferred at any price. And this, despite the fact that in the documents prepared for the rendezvous in Geneva, apart from a few minor improvements, a basic approach has been maintained equating Israel with a racist country rather than a democracy. There are still unacceptable phrases which, if there had been a smidgen of consistency with what was said at the EU ministers' meeting, should have convinced people to forgo attending the conference – as we have decided to do, and as the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and The Netherlands have decided to do." (Mark Mardell, BBC News)

New Zealand's Foreign Minister Murray McCully said he was not satisfied that the wording of the review would prevent the conference from "descending into the same kind of rancorous and unproductive debate that took place in 2001," and he reported that he was concerned that it could be used by Muslim countries to criticize Israel and to limit free speech when it comes to criticizing their religion. (reported by the Associated Press on 20 April)

On the opening day of the conference, France said that Europeans would walk out if Ahmadinejad made any anti-Semitic remarks. "We will have to be very clear. We will not tolerate any slips," French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner told France Info. "If he utters racist or anti-Semitic accusations, we will leave the room immediately."

Germany had decided to stay away from the meeting amid western concerns that the event may take on anti-Semitic overtones, a senior official confirmed in Berlin Thursday.

In his opening address, Secretary-General of UN Ban Ki-moon said, "Some nations who by rights should be helping us to forge a path to a better future are not here. Outside these halls, interest groups of many political and ideological stripes shout against one another in acrimony."

Later in the day, about 40 delegates walked out during Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech after he described Israel as a "racist government" and attacked the creation of the state of Israel. France, which had warned of a walkout, described it as "hate speech", the BBC reported.

The walkout was a public relations disaster for the United Nations, which had hoped the conference would be a shining example of what the UN is supposed to do best: uniting to combat injustice in the world, said the BBC's Imogen Foulkes in Geneva. Her colleague Jeremy Paxman described the walkout as a "stunt", arguing that people should have the right to criticise Zionism.

President Ahmadinejad, the only major leader to attend the conference, said Jewish migrants from Europe and the United States had been sent to the Middle East after World War II "in order to establish a racist government in the occupied Palestine". He continued, through an interpreter: "And in fact, in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe, they helped bring to power the most cruel and repressive racist regime in Palestine." French Ambassador Jean-Baptiste Mattei said: "As soon as he started to address the question of the Jewish people and Israel, we had no reason to stay in the room."

British ambassador Peter Gooderham, also among those who left, said Ahmadinejad's comments were "offensive and inflammatory". "Such outrageous anti-Semitic remarks should have no place in a UN anti-racism forum", he announced to gathered reporters. (BBC News)

A webcast of Ahmadinejad's speech was made available by the United Nations, and the Foreign Policy Journal, an online news publisher, rushed out a transcript.

2021 conference
In September 2021, the UN General Assembly commemorated the 20th anniversary of its 2001 conference by pledging to redouble its anti-racist efforts. The event was boycotted by Albania, Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Colombia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Estonia, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Honduras, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, Moldova, Netherlands, New Zealand, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United States and Uruguay. The European Union also did not participate or speak at the commemoration.

title: World Conference against Racism