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Heathrow: The UK’s Hub Airport

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By Heathrow
Heathrow is the UK’s only hub airport. It’s the busiest airport in Europe and the most connected airport in the world – connecting to 200+ destinations. Heathrow welcomes over 200,000 passengers on roughly 1,300 flights each day, and serves as a Britain’s centre for trade, tourism and investment. 

How do Hub airports work?

As the country’s only hub airport, Heathrow plays a different role from the other airports in the UK. Similar to major shipping distribution centres, hub airports work by consolidating and coordinating the flow of passengers and cargo from various origins to multiple destinations. Hub airports bring together demand for air travel from different cities and regions.

Hubs like Heathrow, Dubai, Istanbul and Amsterdam work by pooling demand from UK leisure passengers, international transfer passengers, business passengers and freight. Airlines are able to consolidate passengers and cargo from across the UK and Europe onto long-haul flights. This matters, because this pooling of demand is what makes more routes and regular flights viable – including links to long-haul international destinations which other UK airports cannot facilitate.  

Why is a hub airport important to the UK? 

The connections we’re able to offer at Heathrow due to our hub status enable exporters from all across the country to get their world-class goods into global marketplaces to help grow their businesses. We are the UK’s largest port by value - the value of the goods processed through Heathrow every year is greater than Felixstowe, Southampton, and the Dover Eurotunnel combined.

A hub airport also offers passengers a greater choice of direct destinations and more frequent services. Our catchment area goes far beyond the South East – our important connections to 13 UK destinations through domestic routes, along with our strong connectivity through road and rail means every part of the country benefits from Heathrow’s global connections.

How Heathrow’s hub status supports British businesses?

As the world’s most connected airport in the UK, Heathrow plays a crucial role facilitating economic growth. While we enable UK exports and drive inward investment, we are also proud to have more than 750 SMEs in our direct supply chain, accounting for 60% of our supplier base. 

SMEs are the backbone of our economy, and we have a long track record of supporting and developing SMEs, locally and from across the country, through initiatives like our annual Business Summit programme which aims to increase the number of smaller businesses in our supply chain and connect them to opportunities.

Infographic - Heathrow works with 750 SMEs across the UK, 60% of our supplier base