Heathrow, the largest of London's 5 airports, is the busiest airport in Europe and the 3rd busiest in the world! It handles the largest number of international passengers of all airports in the world (2011). I have visited London Heathrow 3 times: when switching planes to New York in 1998 and 2011, and when going to London in 1999. The airport is really huge, we had to take a bus that passed under a long tunnel and through roads, trafficated only by airport vehicles, to get to the other terminal. Heathrow has 12 runways, 5 passenger terminals and is the main hub of British Airways. Heathrow started in 1929 as a small airfield and is situated in the London borough of Hillingdon, in the west outskirts of London.
A Boeing 747 operated by British Airways.
British Airways planes dominates Heathrow.
Modern architecture with glass elevators and escalators in one of the terminals.
The waiting area of Terminal 3.
Heathrow is like a city of itself. It has a large number of stores, here a brand of Harrods.
Our AA plane and one of the control towers. Not unexpectedly, it rained in London, when we switched planes from the BA flight from Copenhagen to the AA flight to New York JFK.
Stanstead is the 3rd largest airport in London, after Heathrow and Gatwick.
It is mostly operated by lowfare airlines.
The photos below were taken from
one of the Scottish low fare airline
Ryan Air's aircrafts on the flight from to
Malmö (Sturup) to London(Stansted)
May 2005:
On our way to London, somewhere
in the sky on the plane. The sky was clear and sunny when we left Malmö.
Just above England, about to land. It looks very cloudy for the first time on
the flight.
It arrived at Stansted Airport at 11 o'clock. I was surprised that the
airport
was THAT large. Not "Heathrow-large", but at least 3 times
larger than
Sturup since it has 2 or 3 terminals. The reason I was
surprised is that it
is so new and mainly trafficated by lowfare airlines.
We travelled by a Boeing 737-800. It was windy, cold and there were heavy clouds
above the sky. Clouds that we just had travelled through!
It was a bit strange that the airport had no stairs, bus or skyways. It was
just to walk
on the ground to the terminal.