There are a total of five airports in the capital city of London. These are Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton and City Airport.
London’s Heathrow, is a massive international airport. As well as being the biggest and busiest airport in the UK, it’s also the fourth busiest in the world. It is currently owned by Heathrow Airport Holdings. It has a huge base of over 90 different airlines and serves over 150 destinations worldwide. Virgin Atlantic airways has it’s operating base there.
Heathrow is located about 25km from the center of London and it has five terminals. The biggest, terminal 5 was dedicated by Queen Elizabeth 11 back in March 2008. When terminal five was opened, there was a massive relocation of airlines. This was a very complex programme.
Terminal 2 housed Star Alliance, Aer Lingus and Virgin’s domestic flights.
Terminal 3 housed Oneworld, Virgin Atlantic(long haul flights) and non – aligned airlines.
Terminal 4 housed Sky team
Terminal 5 Oneworld (British flights)
This relocation took quite a while and caused some minor delays at the time.
There are many hotel accommodation choices available in the vicinity of Heathrow airport to allow tourists to relax either before or after a long flight.
A new terminal 2 is expected to fully open by 2014. This will use up over half of the airports £4.8 billion development budget. The new terminal will be designed with 21st century passengers in mind. It will be a state of the art facility with all the frills and spills that you might expect. Construction started back in 2010, but the multi story car park facility is already open for operational trials.
Terminal 2 will be the new home of Virgin Atlantic and Star Alliance members which include Air Canada and United Airlines.
Gatwick airport is the second biggest in London. It’s situated quite a bit outside of central London – about 50km away to be precise. As well as playing second fiddle to Heathrow in terms of traffic, it’s also the second busiest in the whole of the UK. A lot of charter airlines like Gatwick for their base over the bigger Heathrow for obvious reasons. It has it’s fair share of point to point flights.
Many scheduled operators like British Airways, Easyjet, Aer Lingus and Virgin Atlantic use Gatwick as their primary base. Thomas Cook and Thomson airways also use it frequently.
