Heathrow: Britain's Busiest Airport

Heathrow: Britain's Busiest Airport
Genre	Documentary
Directed by	Juliette Murray-Topham Ben Phethean Jimmy Dallas Jermaine Blake Marc Knighton Emma Findlay David Waterman Charles Crich Dave Walley Patrick Phillips Miles Blayden-Ryall Therese Byrne
Narrated by	Paul Thornley (2015–2017) Patricia Hodge (2018) Julie Walters (2019, 2021) Joanna Lumley (2020) Sarah Parish (2022) Frances Barber (2022)
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language	English
No. of series	8
No. of episodes	53
Production
Executive producers	Juliette Murray-Topham Tom Barry Eve Kay
Producers	Juliette Murray-Topham Jimmy Dallas Therese Byrne Ben Phethean Charles Crich Jermaine Blake Nick Cohen Dave Pearson Marc Knighton Emma Findlay Dave Walley Tom Pearson Samantha Deville Patrick Phillips
Production location	Heathrow Airport
Editors	Dave Pearson Nick Cohen Badger Cooper Hamit Shonpal Jonny Stacey Bjorn Johnson Dave Berezai Jeremy Brettingham Jonnie Case
Running time	60 minutes (Series 1–3, 8) 30 minutes (Series 4–7)
Production company	Raw TV
Original release
Network	ITV
Release	4 June 2015 (2015-06-04) – 24 August 2022 (2022-08-24)

Heathrow: Britain's Busiest Airport is a British documentary series, aired by ITV from June 2015 until August 2022.

In July 2023, it was confirmed by ITV that the show would not be returning for a ninth series. ^[1]

Format

The series follows the events happening day after day at Heathrow Airport in London.

Episodes

Series overview

Series	Episodes		Originally released
			First released	Last released
1	3		3 October 2015 (2015-10-03)	17 October 2015 (2015-10-17)
2	3		30 May 2016 (2016-05-30)	13 June 2016 (2016-06-13)
3	3		10 May 2017 (2017-05-10)	24 May 2017 (2017-05-24)
4	6		2 May 2018 (2018-05-02)	13 June 2018 (2018-06-13)
5	12		21 May 2019 (2019-05-21)	16 October 2019 (2019-10-16)
6	12		19 August 2020 (2020-08-19)	4 November 2020 (2020-11-04)
7	12		10 March 2021 (2021-03-10)	27 October 2021 (2021-10-27)
8	6		20 July 2022 (2022-07-20)	24 August 2022 (2022-08-24)

Series 1 (2015)

Episode no.	Airdate	Viewers (millions)	ITV weekly rating	Narrator
1 ("Arrivals")	3 October 2015	TBA	TBC	Paul Thornley
2 ("Turnaround")	10 October 2015		TBC
3 ("Departures")	17 October 2015		TBC
SA	2015	—	—

Series 2 (2016)

Official episode viewing figures are from BARB. ^[2]

Episode no.	Airdate	Viewers (millions)	ITV weekly rating	Narrator
1	30 May 2016	3.33	13	Paul Thornley
2	6 June 2016	3.34	14
3	13 June 2016	2.89	15
SA	2016	3.18	—

Series 3 (2017)

Official episode viewing figures are from BARB. ^[3]

Episode no.	Airdate	Viewers (millions)	ITV weekly rating	Narrator
1	10 May 2017	4.48	16	Paul Thornley
2	17 May 2017	3.46	17
3	24 May 2017	3.25	17
SA	2017	3.73	—

Series 4 (2018)

From series 4, episodes were cut down from 60 to 30 minutes to fit a new time slot.

Episode no.	Airdate	Viewers (millions)	ITV weekly rating	Narrator
1	2 May 2018	3.6	18	Patricia Hodge
2	9 May 2018	3.4	21
3	16 May 2018	4.1	23
4	23 May 2018	4.4
5	6 June 2018	4.5	126
6	13 June 2018	4.3
SA	2018	4.0	—

Series 5 (2019)

Episode no.	Airdate	Viewers (millions)	ITV weekly rating	Narrator
1	21 May 2019 [4]	NA	NA	Julie Walters
2	22 May 2019 [5]	NA	NA
3	5 June 2019 [6] [7]	NA	NA
4	12 June 2019 [8]	4.02	14
5	19 June 2019	4.07	15
6	26 June 2019	3.90	13
7	11 September 2019	NA	NA
8	18 September 2019	NA	NA
9	25 September 2019	TBA	TBA
10	2 October 2019	TBA	TBA
11	9 October 2019	TBA	TBA
12	16 October 2019	TBA	TBA
SA	2019	TBA	TBA

Series 6 (2020)

Series 6 was filmed before COVID-19 restrictions.

Episode no.	Airdate	Viewers (millions)	ITV weekly rating	Narrator
1	19 August 2020 [9]	TBA	TBA	Joanna Lumley
2	26 August 2020 [10]	TBA	TBA
3	2 September 2020	TBA	TBA
4	9 September 2020	TBA	TBA
5	16 September 2020	TBA	TBA
6	23 September 2020	TBA	TBA
7	30 September 2020	TBA	TBA
8	7 October 2020	TBA	TBA
9	14 October 2020	TBA	TBA
10	21 October 2020	TBA	TBA
11	28 October 2020	TBA	TBA
12	4 November 2020	TBA	TBA
SA	2020	TBA	TBA

Series 7 (2021)

The first 3 episodes of this series were filmed in late 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and through England's second national lockdown. Episodes 4 and above were recorded during the relaxation of certain UK travel restrictions in mid 2021.

Episode no.	Airdate	Viewers (millions)	ITV weekly rating	Narrator
1	10 March 2021	TBA	TBA	Julie Walters
2	17 March 2021	TBA	TBA
3	24 March 2021	TBA	TBA
4	25 August 2021	TBA	TBA
5	1 September 2021	TBA	TBA
6	15 September 2021	TBA	TBA
7	22 September 2021	TBA	TBA
8	29 September 2021	TBA	TBA
9	6 October 2021	TBA	TBA
10	13 October 2021	TBA	TBA
11	20 October 2021	TBA	TBA
12	27 October 2021	TBA	TBA

Series 8 (2022)

Series 8 premiered on 20 July 2022. ^[11]

Episode no.	Airdate	Viewers (millions)	ITV weekly rating	Narrator
1	20 July 2022	TBA	TBA	Sarah Parish
2	27 July 2022	TBA	TBA
3	3 August 2022	TBA	TBA
4	10 August 2022	TBA	TBA
5	17 August 2022	TBA	TBA
6	24 August 2022	TBA	TBA	Frances Barber

References

1. "ITV scraps popular documentary series after eight years on air". Daily Mirror . 14 July 2023.
2. "Weekly Top 30 Programmes". Broadcasters' Audience Research Board . Retrieved 13 June 2016.
3. "Weekly Top 30 Programmes". Broadcasters' Audience Research Board . Retrieved 2 May 2018.
4. Heathrow: Britain's Busiest Airport - Series 5 - Episode 1 , retrieved 25 May 2019
5. Heathrow: Britain's Busiest Airport - Series 5 - Episode 2 , retrieved 25 May 2019
6. "Heathrow: Britain's Busiest Airport | TV documentary | Heathrow Traveller". Heathrow Traveller blog. Archived from the original on 25 May 2019. Retrieved 25 May 2019.
7. "Heathrow: Britain's Busiest Airport - S5 - Episode 3". Radio Times. Archived from the original on 25 May 2019. Retrieved 25 May 2019.
8. Abraham Cheung (6 June 2019), Heathrow: Britain's Busiest Airport S05E03 (Season 5, Episode 3, June 2019) , retrieved 7 June 2019
9. Heathrow: Britain's Busiest Airport - Series 6 - Episode 1 , retrieved 28 August 2020
10. Heathrow: Britain's Busiest Airport - Series 6 - Episode 2 , retrieved 28 August 2020
11. "Heathrow: Britain's Busiest Airport". itv.com/presscentre. Retrieved 21 July 2022.