Heathrow Airport Information

London Heathrow Airport or Heathrow is one of the busiest airports in the world. The airport is the United Kingdom's busiest airport, as well as being Europe's busiest airport for passenger traffic and the airport with the highest international passenger traffic in the world. The airport is owned and operated by BAA which is owned by the Spanish Ferrovial Group. The airport is also a primary hub of British Airways and a major hub for rivals BMI and Virgin Atlantic.

The airport is near the southern end of the London Borough of Hillingdon, 24 km (15 miles) west of Central London, England. It is one of two international London airports to be located within the boundary of the Greater London Area, the other being London City Airport.

Heathrow has two parallel main runways running east-west and four terminals. A new terminal, Terminal 5, is under construction and will open in March 2008. There are plans to redevelop or rebuild other terminals and add extra runways. Beginning in 2008 and finishing by 2012, the construction of Heathrow East will replace Terminal 2 and The Queens Building.
BAA, claims that Heathrow is the "world's busiest international airport” but Heathrow is only the world's third-busiest airport by total passenger traffic, after Atlanta-Hartsfield-Jackson and Chicago-O'Hare in the United States, which are both also international airports. However, Heathrow has the highest number of international passengers.
During the 12 months to April 2007, passenger traffic at Heathrow was 67.35 million.

In March 2008 Heathrow Terminal 5 is set to open. This Terminal alone is estimated to handle 30 million passengers a year bringing the toal passengers passing through Heathrow Airport to 90 million. With Heathrow T5 opening, this will make Heathrow Airport the busiest airport in the world.