It may not have been London’s first airport, but over 75 fascinating years Heathrow has become synonymous with air travel to and from the UK. To mark the milestone, Tara Craig examines the hub’s wider impact both at home and abroad
British Airways is the single biggest operator at the West London gateway
Heathrow Airport
Given the scale of its flight operations today – not to mention its enormous physical footprint – it may come as a surprise that the original 150-acre plot for London Heathrow Airport cost just £15,000. Purchased by aero engineer and aircraft builder Richard Fairey in 1930, this embryonic airfield, known as Fairey’s Great West Aerodrome, boasted a single grass runway and what today’s Heathrow describes as a ‘handful of hastily erected buildings’.
