Heathrow Airport, originally called London Airport until 1966 and now known as London Heathrow, is a major international airport in London, England. With Gatwick, City, Luton, Stansted and Southend, it is the largest of the six international airports serving London. The airport facility is owned and operated by Heathrow Airport Holdings. In 2021, it was the seventh-busiest airport in the world by international passenger traffic and eighth-busiest in Europe by total passenger traffic.
London Stansted Airport is an international airport located in Stansted Mountfitchet, Essex, England, 42 mi (68 km) northeast of Central London.
Virgin Atlantic, a trading name of Virgin Atlantic Airways Limited and Virgin Atlantic International Limited, is a British airline with its head office in Crawley, England. The airline was established in 1984 as British Atlantic Airways, and was originally planned by its co-founders Randolph Fields and Alan Hellary to fly between London and the Falkland Islands. Soon after changing the name to Virgin Atlantic Airways, Fields sold his shares in the company after disagreements with Richard Branson over the management of the company. The maiden flight from Gatwick Airport to Newark International Airport took place on 22 June 1984.
Gatwick Airport, also known as London Gatwick, is a major international airport near Crawley, West Sussex, England, 29.5 miles (47.5 km) south of Central London. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Gatwick was the second-busiest airport by total passenger traffic in the UK, after Heathrow Airport, and was the tenth-busiest airport in Europe. It covers a total area of 674 hectares.
British Midland Airways Limited was an airline with its head office in Donington Hall in Castle Donington, close to East Midlands Airport, in the United Kingdom. The airline flew to destinations in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, North America and Central Asia from its operational base at Heathrow Airport, where at its peak it held about 13% of all takeoff and landing slots and operated over 2,000 flights a week. BMI was a member of Star Alliance from 1 July 2000 until 20 April 2012.
Belfast International Airport is an airport 11.5 NM northwest of Belfast in Northern Ireland, is the main Airport for the city of Belfast, Northern Ireland. Until 1983, it was known as Aldergrove Airport, after the nearby village of Aldergrove. In 2018, over 6.2 million passengers travelled through the airport, marking a 7.4% increase compared with 2017. The majority of flights from Belfast International are operated by easyJet, Northern Ireland's biggest airline. It features flights to some European metropolitan and several leisure destinations as well as a seasonal route to Orlando operated by Virgin Atlantic.
British European Airways (BEA), formally British European Airways Corporation, was a British airline which existed from 1946 until 1974.
East Midlands Airport is an international airport in the East Midlands of England, close to Castle Donington in northwestern Leicestershire, between Loughborough, Derby and Nottingham ; Leicester is to the south and Lincoln north east. It serves the whole East Midlands region of Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire, Rutland and Derbyshire. The airfield was originally built as a Royal Air Force station known as RAF Castle Donington in 1943, before being redeveloped as a civilian airport in 1965.
Heathrow Airport Holdings is the United Kingdom-based operator of Heathrow Airport. The company also operated Gatwick Airport, Stansted Airport, Edinburgh Airport and several other UK airports, but was forced by the Competition Commission to sell them in order to break up a monopoly. It was formed by the privatisation of the British Airports Authority as BAA plc as part of Margaret Thatcher's moves to privatise government-owned assets, and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
Dan-Air was an airline based in the United Kingdom and a wholly owned subsidiary of London shipbroking firm Davies and Newman. It was started in 1953 with a single aircraft. Initially, it operated cargo and passenger charter flights from Southend (1953–
The Go-Ahead Group plc is a passenger transport company based in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, with operations in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Singapore, Norway and Germany. The company is listed on the London Stock Exchange.
AirUK was a wholly privately owned, independent regional British airline formed in 1980 as a result of a merger involving four rival UK-based regional airlines. British and Commonwealth (B&C)-owned British Island Airways (BIA) and Air Anglia were the two dominant merger partners. The merged entity's corporate headquarters were originally located at Redhill, Surrey, the location of the old BIA head office. It subsequently relocated to Crawley, West Sussex. In addition to the main maintenance base at Norwich Airport, there also used to be a second major maintenance base at Blackpool Airport. This was closed down following Air UK's major retrenchment during Britain's severe recession of the early 1980s. In 1987, Air UK established Air UK Leisure as a charter subsidiary. The following year, Air UK shifted its headquarters to London Stansted Airport. When Stansted's new Norman Foster-designed terminal opened in 1991, the airline became its first and subsequently main tenant.
In aviation, aircraft ground handling defines the servicing of an aircraft while it is on the ground and (usually) parked at a terminal gate of an airport.
dnata UK is one of the largest independent aircraft ground handling companies in England.
Servisair was an aircraft ground handling company which was acquired and merged into Swissport and partly the Nordic-based Aviator Airport Alliance in 2014.
Tradewinds Airways Ltd was a British all-cargo airline. Its head office was located in Timberham House, on the property of London Gatwick Airport in Crawley, England.
Air transport in the United Kingdom is the commercial carriage of passengers, freight and mail by aircraft, both within the United Kingdom (UK) and between the UK and the rest of the world. In the past 25 years the industry has seen continuous growth, and the demand for passenger air travel in particular is forecast to increase from the current level of 236 million passengers to 465 million in 2030. One airport, Heathrow Airport, is amongst the top ten busiest airports in the world. More than half of all passengers travelling by air in the UK currently travel via the six London area airports. Outside London, Manchester Airport is by far the largest and busiest of the remaining airports, acting as a hub for the 20 million or so people who live within a two-hour drive. Regional airports have experienced the most growth in recent years, due to the success of low-cost carrier airlines over the last decade.
Intra Airways Limited was a private, British independent airline formed in 1969. Initially, it was a charter airline operating passenger and cargo charters from the Channel Islands to the United Kingdom and Continental Europe. Scheduled services commenced in 1971, linking Jersey with Staverton. The airline also established an associated engineering company at Exeter Airport. In 1979, Intra Airways merged with Express Air Freight (C.I.) to form Jersey European Airways. The new entity was initially absorbed into Air Bridge Carriers (ABC), a Field Aviation/Hunting Group company. It subsequently left the Field Aviation/Hunting Group as a result of the demerger of Express Air Services, which had acquired Express Air Freight's cargo operation.
Gatwick Handling Limited was an aircraft ground handling agent headquartered at London Gatwick Airport.
Gatwick Airport was in Surrey until 1974, when it became part of West Sussex as a result of a county boundary change. The original, pre-World War II airport was built on the site of a manor in the parish of Charlwood. The land was first used as an aerodrome in the 1920s, and in 1933 commercial flights there were approved by the Air Ministry.
