From June 1 next year, Cathay Pacific will grow its four-times weekly service to Hong Kong to a daily.

The flights will be operated on an Airbus A350-900 and the growth means the airline will be operating six daily non-stop flights between Hong Kong and London next year.

The announcement last week coincided with the start of a new Thomas Cook Airlines service from the airport to Cape Town. The three- times-weekly flight will run from now until March 21, 2017.

Some 3.9 million passengers used Gatwick in November, a growth of 7.1% year-on-year. Long haul was also the key factor in the increase after growing by 20%.

Gatwick chief executive Stewart Wingate said: “Almost three million more passengers are travelling through the airport this year versus the same time last year, with 42.7 million passengers passing through the airport annually – a figure that puts us 14 years ahead of industry predictions.

“Passengers are responding to our growing line-up of long-haul connections with routes to China, Peru, Canada, Costa Rica, Nigeria, as well as the US added this last year.