It seems that airline easyJet will fill the slots at Gatwick Airport, which will be vacated by Aer Lingus later this year. The budge airline is adding three aircrafts to its fleet at Gatwick but has not revealed where they will be flying to.

Aer Lignus, meanwhile, will take two of its Airbus A320’s out of operation and reduce its fleet size to just three at Gatwick. The move will become effective starting at the end of March. The three aircrafts will continue to serve three existing routes to Malaga, Dublin and Knock and a new route to Cork.

Aer Lingus has deferred delivery of two A320 aircrafts, originally due for delivery in October and November of 2010. These will now be taken in April and May of 2011. There will also be some savage pay cuts for the Irish flag carrier. The carrier went on to say, as a result of the cost and capacity management in 2009, the group expects to report a small operating profit for the second half of 2009.

The company said that this performance primarily reflects better than expected yields in the second half of 2009. This has been driven by the removal of a long haul aircraft in September and tactical route cancellations in November. Passenger figures were also up in December by 9 percent year on year.

easyJet’s regional general manager, Paul Simmons, said that they are very proud to have developed their business at Gatiwck. He said, as a result of this additional capacity, they plan to announce some great new routes from Gatwick for this summer within the next few weeks.