In message , at 12:22:10 on
Tue, 2 Sep 2014, Recliner remarked:
I haven't looked at the schedules but I can well believe every London
airport has several flights a day to particular european destinations
that could easily be consolidated into less "movements" in larger, more
efficient, planes if that were the case.

Heathrow/Gatwick don't have flights to very many European destinations.
That market is dominated by low-cost airlines from other airports.

That's certainly true of the holiday resorts, but the major European
cities tend to have flights to Heathrow and Gatwick.

That's not many cities though, and we know that flights to Brussels and
Paris are much reduced on account of Eurostar.

If we take the next most significant capital, Berlin, there are just ten
flights a day from Heathrow (seven by BA, three Germanwings) and three
from Gatwick (all Easyjet).

Frankfurt has a few more from Heathrow, but none from Gatwick.
--
Roland Perry