South Terminal parking at Gatwick

The car parks that serve the South Terminal, how the railway station changes the calculation, and when a North Terminal space is the better buy.

Last reviewed 6 September 2026. Prices and car park rules change often — confirm the current details before you travel.

The South Terminal is the older of Gatwick's two terminals and the one attached to Gatwick Airport railway station. That single fact shapes a lot of the parking decisions around it: it is the terminal most people arrive at by train, which changes both the traffic patterns on the approach roads and the calculation about whether to drive at all.

The official South Terminal car parks

Short Stay South

The short stay multi-storey sits directly alongside the terminal, a walk of a few minutes from the car to the check-in hall with no transfer involved. It is designed for people who want to be in and out: dropping someone off properly rather than at the forecourt, collecting an arrival, or taking a very short trip.

The tariff structure reflects that. The first stretch is priced for brief visits and then rises sharply. Leaving a car in short stay for a week is an expensive mistake, and a surprisingly common one.

Long Stay South

Long Stay South is out on the airport perimeter with a free transfer bus to the terminal. This is the airport's own answer to holiday parking: a much lower daily rate in exchange for a bus ride at each end. For a week or a fortnight the saving against short stay is not marginal, it is the difference between a sensible cost and an eye-watering one.

What you are buying with the higher short stay price is the absence of the bus. Whether that is worth it depends almost entirely on how much luggage you have and who you are travelling with.

Off-airport parking for the South Terminal

The independent operators around Gatwick serve both terminals, and for the South Terminal the usual considerations apply — transfer frequency, whether the bus comes to your terminal directly, whether transfers are included both ways, and where the compound actually is.

One South Terminal specific point is worth making. Because the railway station feeds into the South Terminal, the approach roads on that side carry a different mix of traffic, and an operator quoting a short transfer time is quoting it for a clear run. If your flight is at a peak hour, assume the real transfer will be longer than the advertised one and build in a margin.

Meet and greet at the South Terminal

Meet and greet works the same way at both terminals: you drive to a designated area on the terminal forecourt, hand the car to a driver, and walk into departures. The car is taken away to a compound and returned to you on the forecourt when you land.

It removes the transfer entirely, which for the South Terminal means you go from car to check-in in a handful of minutes. It costs more than self-park options and it involves trusting a stranger with your car, so the operator's credentials matter — where the car is stored, what insurance covers it while in their care, and what happens if your flight lands very late.

Should you drive at all?

Because the station is attached to the South Terminal, this is a fair question here in a way it is not at every airport. For a solo traveller with one bag coming from a town on a direct line, the train can work out cheaper than a fortnight's parking and removes the whole problem.

Driving wins when there are several of you, when you have a lot of luggage, when you are travelling at an hour the trains do not usefully run, or when the journey to a station is itself a hassle. It is worth doing the arithmetic honestly rather than assuming — a fortnight of long stay parking is a real sum of money, and so are four return train tickets.

Using a North Terminal car park

The free inter-terminal shuttle means North Terminal car parks are entirely viable for a South Terminal flight. If your dates throw up a much better price on the North side, take it — the shuttle takes a couple of minutes and runs continuously.

Just remember you will do the transfer twice, and the second time will be after a flight with your bags. It is a small tax on a real saving, but it is not nothing.

Practical checks before you book

• Confirm your terminal against your airline booking, not against memory — airlines do move between terminals.
• Put the car park's actual postcode into your satnav, not "Gatwick Airport".
• Check whether the price includes the transfer in both directions.
• Read the cancellation and amendment terms before you take the cheapest rate; on a trip booked months ahead, flexibility is often worth more than a few pounds.