Why was Heathrow renamed?

The airport was opened on 25 March 1946 as London Airport. The airport was renamed Heathrow Airport in the last week of September 1966, to avoid confusion with the other two airports which serve London, Gatwick and Stansted. The design for the airport was by Sir Frederick Gibberd.



Contrary to popular social media rumors in 2026, London Heathrow Airport has not been officially renamed; however, its management company underwent a major branding shift. In 2012, the company formerly known as BAA (British Airports Authority) changed its name to Heathrow Airport Holdings. This change occurred because the company had sold off its other UK assets, like Gatwick and Stansted, leaving Heathrow as its primary focus (accounting for 95% of its business). In 2025 and 2026, there have been political motions in the UK Parliament to rename the actual airport to "Elizabeth II International" to honor the late Queen’s centenary (1926–2026), but the name "Heathrow" remains the global standard for the facility itself. The "renaming" most people refer to is the corporate transition intended to simplify the brand and link it directly to the world-famous hub it operates, rather than a confusing three-letter acronym from its privatized past.

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The name Gatwick is said to derive from old English meaning (essentially) “Goat Farm”. The London & Brighton Railway opened on 12th July 1841 and ran close to the Gatwick Manor house. The Jordan family sold the land to the newly established Gatwick Race Course Company in 1890.

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London Airport is renamed 'Heathrow'.

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Heathrow's Terminal 2 closes as work on its £1 billion replacement gets underway. Passengers will check in at Heathrow's Terminal 2 for the last time on Monday as, after 54 years of service, it is closing to make way for a stunning £1 billion replacement.

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Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport remains the busiest airport in the world with 5.2 million seats in September 2023. The composition of the Global Top 10 Busiest Airports is also the same as last month but there are a few changes to the rankings.

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Heathrow Terminal 5 handles more passengers than any other terminal in the UK – even when busy single-terminal airports are included. In September an average of 100,000 passengers arrived or departed each day from T5, which is the main hub for British Airways.

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The name Stansted goes back to Saxon times, and translates as 'stoney place', a lithic harbinger of the acres of tarmac and concrete that, a millennium later, would characterise the modern airport. The second part of the village's name comes from local land owner William de Mountfichet (1086-1156).

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'London's largest airport, Heathrow, is hemmed in by the suburbs and limited to just two runways,' he explains. 'Because it can't expand, the demand for air travel is met by smaller, single-runway airports around the South-East: Gatwick, Stansted, Luton and Southend.

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London has six major airports: London City, London Gatwick, London Heathrow, London Luton, London Stansted and London Southend. Find all the information you need about London's airport facilities, locations and connections, including a London airports map.

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Liverpool's international airport used to be called Speke Airport but, in 2001, it was renamed after John Lennon of The Beatles, who was born and raised in the city of Liverpool. This is the first airport in the UK to be named after a person.

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In fact, Heathrow started to go in another direction, dropping most of its runways. It has had only two runways since the 1970s as the shorter strips couldn't keep up with the requirements of modern aircraft such as the new jets that were arriving on the scene.

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Commercial aviation was about to enter a different age, and environmental concerns led to the cancellation of the grand plan for the Everglades Jetport after only one runway had been built. Now, that lone runway functions both as a training ground and a nostalgic reminder of a dream that never materialized.

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The Kansai International Airport, serving the Japanese city of Osaka and occupying two artificial islands in Osaka Bay, leads the race to the bottom. Since it opened in 1994, Kansai has sunk 38 feet.

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