GATWICK has scooped three top awards at separate ceremonies.

It won:

- Airport of the Year at the National Transport Awards

- Global environmental award for its world-first waste plant at the Digital Impact Awards

- Digital In-house Team of the Year at the Digital Impact Awards.

Chris Woodroofe, Chief Operating Officer, Gatwick Airport, said:“These awards recognise the professionalism and effort our staff put in to ensure that our passengers receive the best experience possible.

“They also recognise the £2.7 billion investment Gatwick has made to transform the airport, which now ranks among the best airports in the world.

“We will continue to invest in new facilities, the latest IT innovations and initiatives that will see us become the greenest airport in the UK.

“The effort we have put in to transform Gatwick is paying dividends and we are serving more passengers than ever before and now offer them a choice of over 60 long haul routes – a world record for a single runway airport.

“Our growing long haul network also provides UK businesses with fast access to markets outside Europe given most airfreight is carried in the hold of long haul passenger flights.”

Gatwick beat six other airports to win Airport of the Year at a ceremony hosted by Alastair Campbell following a key note speech by Secretary of State for Transport Chris Grayling.

Gatwick won the award for transforming the airport with a £2.7 billion investment programme - doing so while also maintaining strong customer service.

It was also praised for its Airline Moves project which saw Gatwick’s three biggest airlines seamlessly switch terminals over a 72-hour period.

Separately, Gatwick’s world-first waste plant won the Outstanding Sustainability Programme award at Airports Going Green – the aviation ‘industry’s leading sustainability platform’ – with the award due to be presented in Dallas, Texas, next month.

The new waste management plant makes Gatwick the first airport in the world able to turn Category 1 airline waste – such as food and packaging - into energy onsite, removing the need to transport it for specialist incineration or deep landfill storage.

The integrated dry waste sorting centre has lifted the airport’s recycling rate to 64 per cent by June 2017 – the best rate for any UK airport.

By reusing water consumption has reduced by two million litres per annum, with waste related vehicle journeys also falling by 50 per cent, reducing carbon emissions.

Gatwick was singled out by judges of Digital Impact Awards for one of the‘Special Awards’ – Digital In-house Team of the Year – with the airport’s innovative ‘Community App’ also winning Best Corporate App.

Gatwick is a community formed of a wide variety of businesses and Gatwick’s ‘Community app’ is a smartphone-based platform that gives the workforce easy access to real time information about airport issues.