Which 25 routes from Heathrow airport had over 1 million passengers in 2024?

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• BA Flyer IHG Stayer says:

  23 Mar23 March 05:44

  Traffic to Amsterdam likely to have increased a bit as Eurostar was shut down for half the year and some passengers may have flown instead of making the train switch at Brussels.

  So that ~ 400k difference over Paris would be affected by that plus there are only 3 or 4 AMS services a day compared to 15+ to Paris.

  Those figures will be closer now that the Eurostar service is back and able to carry more passengers than before now the terminal capacity at Centraal has increased.

  And since BA ceased LGW-AMS the ex LHR route will get a small bump from that.

  I’m not sure the LHR March figures will be that much weaker than before.
  Bad weather like happened early this month over several days will likely
  have a bigger impact than Friday’s single day shut down. And bad weather elsewhere can also lead to ex-LHR flight cancellations too.

  I also wonder how much the traffic to FRA and MUC would drop if Lufty flew direct to BER instead of making people change at either airport?

  • Michael says:

    23 Mar23 March 18:57

    Amsterdam traffic from LHR will have a fair amount of onward connections on KLM, both European and long haul, from their massive hub operation there, along with some of the Virgin-Delta-AF/KLM transatlantic joint venture traffic which is mostly interchangeable with VS/DL from LHR. I don’t think Air France gets as much transfer traffic from U.K. and a lot less O&D due to Eurostar.

    Equally a lot of the US destinations on this list might not be hubs for BA/AA onward connections but the other joint ventures do carry significant traffic over their own hubs.

    The article and commentators are largely taking a London / BA view while the reality is a lot more complex.

  • memesweeper says:

    23 Mar23 March 22:34

    Even when Eurostar is operating optimally, it’s not the ‘no brainer’ to take the train to Amsterdam as it is with Paris due to the journey time, and the low frequency. Obviously, if your destination is actually the airport then the calculation is different.

    • Rob says:

      24 Mar24 March 05:14

      Definitely not a no-brainer. I’m in Amsterdam once a year on average and never taken the train. If the wi-fi actually worked properly I might but 5 hours tethering off my phone isn’t realistic.

• Tom says:

  23 Mar23 March 06:33

  This highlights just how much Emirates and Qatar must be making from LHR now…

  I don’t think it’s impossible Emirates is making as much from LHR-DXB as BA is from LHR-JFK at this point.

  • Throwawayname says:

    23 Mar23 March 11:23

    The yields will be massively different as the O&D proportion of the JFK flights will be a lot higher than that of the DXB ones.

    • Tom says:

      23 Mar23 March 14:01

      Based on these passenger numbers, the number of Emirates O&D passengers to Dubai will be not far off the number of BA O&D ones to JFK. You have 3.5 million passengers split between BA / AA / VS / DL / B6 on JFK, BA’s share of revenue is going to be well below 50% as a result. In contrast EK takes the overwhelming majority of revenue from 2.5 million passengers flying to Dubai (and I understand at least 50% of the traffic on the LHR route is O&D last time I heard). In addition, EK connecting flights are increasingly not cheap either, it’s basically the same price to connect in Dubai as to take the direct BA service to Asia these days.

      • Tom says:

        23 Mar23 March 14:02

        Sorry, 3.2 million, not 3.5 million, typo.

• flyforfun says:

  23 Mar23 March 07:54

  Does Singapore traffic and indeed Dubai, Doha and other hub stops include onward traffic to other destinations like Australia/NZ or only those where that was their final destination?

  • Kowalski says:

    23 Mar23 March 10:17

    I’m sure it includes all passengers flying the route, regardless of their final destination

  • Ryan says:

    23 Mar23 March 11:09

    🤷‍♂️

    These are based on where the initial flight lands and do not account for connecting itineraries, which is why Dubai and Doha rank so highly. Anyone flying from Heathrow to Singapore on Emirates is counted as travelling to Dubai.

• Mikeact says:

  23 Mar23 March 09:18

  Should please the ‘Greens’. Many more flights, many more passengers, major airport updates & expansions….and so on.

• Garethgerry says:

  23 Mar23 March 09:48

  The importance of Newyork, stands out as it’s primarily a destination not a hub

  • Fennec says:

    23 Mar23 March 14:15

    NYC is actually all three types – a hub, a primary destination (Tri-State area) and also a stopover destination on the way to / from another primary destination in North America.

    There is also LaGuardia Airport but it has a flight range limit and limited immigration / customs facilities.

• David S says:

  23 Mar23 March 09:49

  Yet BA just doesn’t get it with its paltry number of flights to Asia. I would love to know the end destinations. You can see the huge number of passengers either going direct to Asia or going to an intermediate travel hub, eg Doha or probably flying to another countries major travel hub for onward travel. BA – these customers could be yours if you flew there and…..if the price is right. Sadly, little chance of that i guess

  • JDB says:

    23 Mar23 March 10:14

    I think it’s quite odd to suggest that “BA just doesn’t get it with its paltry number of flights to Asia” when it of course fully understands the economics of Asian routes vs US routes including revenue, relative route length costs/issues and cargo opportunities.

    • Throwawayname says:

      23 Mar23 March 11:44

      What it doesn’t get is diversification – whether it’s the long-haul route mix itself, the short-haul/long-haul split, the primary hub/focus city approach (OPO, LYS, SKG, KRK, GVA, and even BGO are all mini-hubs for their respective flag carriers), the customer segmentation stuff (viz. loyalty changes) or business development in outstation markets (M&M offers credit cards in ca. 20 countries), the BA strategy is to put all its eggs in one basket, reap the benefits when things are going well, then surprise itself by the realisation that it’s in a cyclical business and adopt the old ‘stick to the knitting’ logic by making further cuts to the bits where it doesn’t already have a competitive advantage, thereby increasing the volatility in time for the next cycle. One could argue that this is a stupid long-term strategy, but then again in the long run we’re all dead.

      • John says:

        23 Mar23 March 21:11

        If you’re comparing the US to Europe you could say that US airlines offer credit cards in 50+ “countries”.

        • Throwawayname says:

          24 Mar24 March 00:27

          The USA is one of the countries where M&M credit cards are offered, so that unconventional accounting would take it to 70+!

  • Londonsteve says:

    23 Mar23 March 16:21

    BA’s issue with flights to Asia (and one that’s shared with other European carriers) is the lack of overflight rights about Russia. Without that, the block times and consequent fuel burn serve to render most routes unviable. The ME3 are immune as they can continue to overfly Russia, as can Chinese carriers. As a consequence, ‘we’ cannot compete with their prices.

    I suspect a large percentage of the traffic flying between Asia and London on BA is transiting in London to another destination and that serves to reduce the yields even further. With some exceptions, they’re essentially long haul feeder flights and a significant percentage of these transfer passengers are probably flying on the US if I had to guess.

  • BBbetter says:

    23 Mar23 March 17:31

    We might actually see more Asia routes from this year as tourism to US is expected to significantly decline

  • Guido says:

    24 Mar24 March 12:46

    The way I see it, BA just isn’t good enough on the Asian routes compared to the competition. In contrast, going to the US and compared to the US carriers, BA’s product is good – it’s a much lower bar. I’ll take CX or SQ over BA any day, it’s not even close. However, compared to the dire experience on, say, AA, I’d definitely pick BA instead.

• BBbetter says:

  23 Mar23 March 10:14

  It’s a shame so many have to resort to a flight to Paris and Amsterdam.
  Shortsightedness from the government, poor planning and lack of competition on the Eurostar route.
  The French cleverly extended it to Disneyland but we can’t connect it to even our own rail network.

  • ADS says:

    23 Mar23 March 11:12

    yes – Eurostar restricting supply means that it’s often cheaper to fly

    add in all the pax from LGW/LCY/STN/LTN and the lack of supply / competition is even more crazy!

    • Londonsteve says:

      23 Mar23 March 13:29

      I agree it’s daft that so many of us are flying to Paris (and Brussels) when a fast and reliable train link exists. The issue as I see it is the capacity constraint at the termini stations and the need to undergo immigration checks, in turn limiting the ability of Eurostar (and any competitor service that might seek a slice of the pie) to process passengers onto trains. It would be vastly easier if passengers only needed to undergo a security check. I’ve never completely understood why immigration checks can’t take place on the train while it’s moving. The tunnel itself has plenty of spare capacity and the operator, Getlink would be delighted to welcome more trains. The termini stations were designed for the Eurostar timetable and it’s very difficult to liberate extra space. Even if immigration were conducted on the train and the passenger throughput could be improved, the next issue becomes the availability of segregated, secure platforms from where all these extras trains could depart.

      I’m hopeful a ‘low cost’ operation (operated perhaps by Virgin, or SNCF Ouigo) can commence from Ebbsfleet where the station infrastructure for international services is completely mothballed. They could serve Disneyland Paris where the international facilities are also underutilised and where good connections are available via the TGV further afield. Failing that Lille would also be a useful transfer point where the facilities are also currently lightly used. St. Pancras could remain the domain of Eurostar and perhaps a handful of DB ICE services direct to Germany. A twice daily service to Frankfurt stopping in Brussels, Liege and Cologne would work well and be very useful for a lot of people, the issue (again) is what to do about immigration controls on the return leg, short of decanting everyone in Brussels (or Lille) and forcing them to pass through EU and UK immigration while the train waits on the platform. I suspect this is the biggest obstacle to DB commencing services.

      • Mikeact says:

        23 Mar23 March 22:11

        ‘ I agree it’s daft that so many of us are flying to Paris (and Brussels) when a fast and reliable train link exists’

        From London….shame for the rest.

        • Londonsteve says:

          23 Mar23 March 23:35

          Yes, I should have added ‘from London’. However, the article was about the busiest routes from Heathrow so I was only ever considering the London market.

          With the best will in the world, unless the UK was going to join Schengen, direct train service to the continent from the regions are a non-starter, leaving planes as the only (and probably most practical) option.

  • Nico says:

    23 Mar23 March 11:31

    A lot has to be connecting traffic and then other options don’t really make sense.

  • Throwawayname says:

    23 Mar23 March 11:54

    The vast majority of pax will be on connections. There might be a case for kicking them out of LHR and spreading them across the other London airports (plus the likes of SOU and EMA) in order to make better use of scarce infrastructure at LHR, but I expect that BA would not welcome the resulting loss of connecting traffic.

    • Londonsteve says:

      23 Mar23 March 13:15

      I agree, relatively few passengers flying LHR to Paris will have Paris as their end destination. The only motivation to fly the route is if it’s cheaper than Eurostar and a local London airport is more handy that the trek to St. Pancras. LHR to Paris is invariably expensive (AF even more than BA in my experience) as the airlines will be keeping capacity free for transfer passengers and therefore pricing the route at a level that can accommodate them while filling the remaining seats with high margin traffic for whom LHR is the most comfortable option.

      • JDB says:

        23 Mar23 March 13:22

        Heathrow is a whole lot more convenient than St Pancras for us, so last month we flew to Paris with BA, £230 return in Club which seemed jolly reasonable.

        • Londonsteve says:

          23 Mar23 March 16:27

          It’s reasonable compared to what Eurostar sometimes charges and factoring in the lounge access, etc. Relative to the distance flown it’s expensive. I can’t imagine there are many people availing themselves of Business to fly to Paris from LHR, 95% of J passengers will be in transit. On such a short flight the amenities of the front cabin are meaningless but I can see the appeal if you’re local to Heathrow and might want to take 2 x 32 kilos. You can do that for free with Eurostar even on a basic ticket but there’s a lot more physical lugging of cases involved with that option.

      • Nico says:

        23 Mar23 March 14:05

        I flew once to Paris instead of using the eurostar as I was going from central to central. That was not a good idea! So much time wasted.

        • Rob says:

          23 Mar23 March 15:58

          Back in my banking days I used to fly to our Paris office (just behind Four Seasons) because I got business class and it was 80 tier points.

          Such is the business BA will now lose under the new structure!

          (Those were also the days when your tier point target was reduced by 20% if you had an EU account address.)

        • Londonsteve says:

          23 Mar23 March 15:59

          Clearly the train is the better option in that event, but for the price sensitive the plane is usually the cheaper option (albeit almost never from LHR).

    • Bagoly says:

      23 Mar23 March 13:57

      And the connections are two ways:
      E.g. Paris to Nashville via LHR and London to Abidjan via CDG.

      There’s also routes E.g. London/Paris to New York where the airline offering the indirect route offers a lower fare.

  • Andrew says:

    23 Mar23 March 14:29

    There isn’t a single direct Eurostar service to anywhere south of Paris despite all of the infrastructure existing. If the market for that doesn’t exist what makes you think there’s a market for Eurostar services to northern British cities?

    • Londonsteve says:

      23 Mar23 March 16:05

      I think the market DOES exist for direct services to elsewhere in France (and indeed, further afield on the continent), the issue is the lack of border control infrastructure to process passengers departing from, say, Nice, or Lyon. Same goes for Manchester or Edinburgh. The other issue with regional departures in the UK is the relatively slow speed of UK rail (max 125 mph) and the lack of unused rail capacity during the day. This is what HS2 was designed to alleviate (many people think it was purely about offering faster rail connections between London and the north of England, but the additional capacity was at least 50% of the motivation) but won’t presently happen, other than a limited utility spur to Birmingham that if it wasn’t already so far advanced, they’d have also cancelled.

      • Andy in Cheshire says:

        23 Mar23 March 17:10

        Yet another example of how stupid Brexit was.

        • Andrew says:

          23 Mar23 March 18:44

          All of the border infrastructure has been necessary from the very first Eurostar service. Nothing to do with Brexit

        • Londonsteve says:

          23 Mar23 March 18:57

          While I agree with your premise, the UK never joined Schengen meaning that immigration controls always featured. Made all the more difficult by the UK and France signing the Le Touquet agreement that resulted in dual controls prior to travel. The usual order of play is that you pass exit controls in the country you’re departing from and go through arrival controls in your destination country. The UK decided this was too lax and probably due to the risk of people claiming asylum once on UK soil pushed out embarkation controls to the channel ports (including the Eurostar terminals), necessitating the presence of UK Border Force staff at any departure point. Even if the necessary infrastructure modifications were made at, say, Frankfurt main station, I cannot see DB wanting to fund a permanent contingent of UK Border Force staff to process passengers travelling on their services.

          What has never been clear to me is why air passengers are able to fly to the UK having only passed exit controls at their departure point whereas those seeking to travel to the UK by sea or rail routes have to be first screened by the UK authorities. Surely in all cases the airline, ferry company or rail operator can simply deny embarkation to anyone that cannot prove they have a legal right to enter the UK on arrival.

      • Andrew says:

        23 Mar23 March 18:51

        With high speed tracks all the way London to Nice would take 8 hours. Even taking into account getting to and from airports that’s not competitive with a 2 hour flight. Add in price and not many would choose train over plane other than for the novelty.

        • Londonsteve says:

          23 Mar23 March 23:41

          In the case of Nice, you’re probably right, the journey is too long. Flights meanwhile are quick, cheap and plentiful. There are however intervening stations with large populations that aren’t well served by a local airport. They would certainly value having a direct train to London as would visitors from the UK if it’s a destination of touristic appeal. But we’re back to the issue of the need for immigration controls at the point of embarkation.

      • John says:

        23 Mar23 March 21:16

        There is a small market for Paris to e.g. Manchester or Edinburgh, but it is not profitable to capture it unless the Paris to London market has excess capacity AND can’t be grown further.

• Mark says:

  23 Mar23 March 10:44

  I call BS

  Miami. 1.1m

  That’s 3000 passengers a day, every day and there’s not enough seats every day to even reach that.

  For several months last year there was only 1 BA A380 flying the route and even with the scheduled 6 flights a day from BA, Virgin, & AA you can’t get 500 on a plane and their not always full!

  • ADS says:

    23 Mar23 March 11:19

    I think passenger numbers are usually counted as combined arrivals and departures – so the maths does work !

    • kevin86 says:

      23 Mar23 March 11:35

      Obviously it’s both ways

  • SBIre says:

    23 Mar23 March 11:24

    I assume they are counting both ways?

  • ChrisBCN says:

    23 Mar23 March 17:24

    It’s bad practice in life to call things you don’t understand BS.

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