The History of Heathrow Airport

Heathrow Airport is London’s major airport and also holds the title as the UK’s largest airport and Europe’s busiest airport for passenger traffic. It also handles more international traffic than any other airport in the world.

Heathrow is located 15 miles west of Central London and is assessable via a short journey on the A4 road. Alternatively there are regular bus and underground services to all of the airports four terminals.

Heathrow was first built in 1953 having previously served as an airfield during both World Wars, the airfield had been used for civil flights since 1946 but the first terminal building was not constructed until 1953.

The airport continued to expand during the 1960’s with the addition of the Oceanic Terminal (now terminal 3) and Terminal 1. By 1968 the Heathrow was handling 14millions passengers each year, most of the passengers were wealthy state and business people who were chauffeur driven to the airport and therefore mass car parking was never added to the site.

During the 1970’s the airport continued to expand with the addition of a cargo terminal, arrivals hall and the UK’s first moving walkways. The two main runways were also extended to accommodate larger aircraft.

By the 1980’s the airport was handling over 30million passengers each year and an additional terminal was built next to the existing cargo terminal to the south of the runways. Named terminal four the building was linked to the three other passenger terminals via a tunnel.

During the 1990’s the BAA who own the airport made changes to the terminal layouts in order to maximise commercial income from shopping facilities.

Today the airport is served by 95 different airlines covering 180 different destinations making it the busiest airport in terms of passengers per square meter anywhere in the world.

Building work is also underway on a new terminal five which will allow Heathrow to handle up to 90million passengers each year.