Why Does London Have So Many Airports?

After a 3 year hiatus, Jay Foreman’s back with his 3rd Unfinished London video. In his latest installment he explains why London has more airports than any other city in the world. Why does London have 6 international airports? New York and Tokyo, which are much bigger than London, seem to manage just fine with only 2 each.

Well it all comes down to money, forward planning, not forward enough planning and semantics as to what actually counts as a “London” airport. Watch the entertaining and informative video above to learn all about how these forces created the crazy airport landscape we see in London today.

And in case you can’t name London’s 6 international from memory here they are in order of how many passengers they carry each year (numbers from 2013):

  1. Heathrow: 72 million.
  2. Gatwick: 35 million
  3. Stansted: 17 million
  4. Luton: 10 million
  5. London City: 3 million
  6. Southend: 1 million

Watch the video? Good. Do you think we should add London Oxford Airpot, London Ashford Airport, etc. to the list above?