Heathrow Airport - Facts, Figures and History

Heathrow Airport Facts

Heathrow serves more international passengers than any other airport in the world.
Heathrow served 213,000 passengers on it's busiest day ever (Sunday 29 July 2001).
Heathrow's most popular destination is now the United States Of America and it's busiest routes stand as New York, Paris, Amsterdam and Dublin.
On average approximately 80 million items of baggage pass through Heathrow each year.
Heathrow is the most important employment in Europe.
It employs some 68,000 directly on the airport site and has created an astounding 245,000 nationwide. This contributes Ł5 billion to the UK economy in wages alone.

Heathrow Airport History

Heathrow airport was opened in 1946 at which time it dealt with just 9,000 flights to 18 destinations. A spiral of growth has seen Heathrow become the busiest airport in the world. In 2000 - 2001 Heathrow operated over 450,000 flights, transporting 64 million passengers through over 90 airlines to approximately 170 destinations worldwide.

Heathrow has 2 main runways as well as a cross wind runway and 4 terminals with a 5th in development.

Terminal 1

In terms of passenger volume this is busiest of the 4 terminals. In 1999 it served 24.6 million passengers and is home to 13 airlines. It handles all domestic flights along with UK airline departures to Europe as well as South African Airlines and ET AL flights.

Terminal 2

This was Heathrow's first terminal opening in 1955. It is now home to 28 airlines and serves mainly non UK airline flights to Europe as well as several long haul destinations. In 1999 Terminal 2 served some 8.2 million passengers.

Terminal 3

Serving approximately 15.5 million passengers a year this is the long haul terminal for United States, South American, Asian and Asia Pacific airlines as well as the majority of African carriers.

Terminal 4

Home to just 6 airlines it still manages to serve an impressive 14.2 million passengers each year. Although used by KLM and Quantas Terminal 4 is typically associated with British Airways. It currently serves there long haul, Concorde and other BA flights to Athens, Paris, Amsterdam, Tel Aviv and Moscow.

Terminal 5 (Under Development)

The building of a fifth passenger terminal at Heathrow was given the go ahead by the government on 20 November 2001 after an arduous 3 year and 10 month planning enquiry. Terminal 5 will have the capacity to handle over 30 million additional passengers each year. It will consist primarily of a core building and two satellites and will have excellent public transport links being served directly by the Heathrow Express and London Underground's Piccadilly Line. It is hoped that the building of Terminal 5 will cement Heathrow's position in the future as the world's busiest airport.

To find out which terminal you will fly from check out our terminal information page.