page_title: Heathrow Airport
section_title: Facilities
hierarchical_section_title: Heathrow Airport / Operations / Facilities
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Le Terminal 5 de l'aéroport de Heathrow.
context_page_description: Heathrow Airport, originally called London Airport and now known as London Heathrow, is a major international airport in London, United Kingdom. Heathrow is the second busiest airport in the world by international passenger traffic, as well as the busiest airport in Europe by passenger traffic, and the seventh busiest airport in the world by total passenger traffic. It is one of six international airports serving the London region. In 2019, it handled a record 80.8 million passengers, a 0.9% increase from 2018 as well as 475,861 aircraft movements, a decrease of 1,743 from 2018. The airport facility is owned and operated by Heathrow Airport Holdings.
  Heathrow lies 14 miles west of Central London, and has two parallel east–west runways along with four operational terminals on a site that covers 12.27 square kilometres. The airport is the primary hub for British Airways and the primary operating base for Virgin Atlantic.
  In September 2012, the Government of the United Kingdom established the Airports Commission, an independent commission chaired by Sir Howard Davies to examine various options for increasing capacity at UK airports.
context_section_description: Heathrow Airport is used by over 80 airlines flying to 185 destinations in 84 countries. The airport is the primary hub of British Airways and is a base for Virgin Atlantic. It has four passenger terminals (numbered 2 to 5) and a cargo terminal. Of Heathrow's 78 million passengers in 2017, 94% were international travellers; the remaining 6% were bound for (or arriving from) places in the UK. The busiest single destination in passenger numbers is New York, with over 3 million passengers flying between Heathrow and JFK Airport in 2013.
  In the 1950s, Heathrow had six runways, arranged in three pairs at different angles in the shape of a hexagram with the permanent passenger terminal in the middle and the older terminal along the north edge of the field; two of its runways would always be within 30° of the wind direction. As the required length for runways has grown, Heathrow now has only two parallel runways running east–west. These are extended versions of the two east–west runways from the original hexagram. From the air, almost all of the original runways can still be seen, incorporated into the present system of taxiways. North of the northern runway and the former taxiway and aprons, now the site of extensive car parks, is the entrance to the access tunnel and the site of Heathrow's unofficial "gate guardian". For many years the home of a 40% scale model of a British Airways Concorde, G-CONC, the site has been occupied by a model of an Emirates Airbus A380 since 2008.
  Heathrow Airport has Anglican, Catholic, Free Church, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh chaplains. There is a multi-faith prayer room and counselling room in each terminal, in addition to St. George's Interdenominational Chapel in an underground vault adjacent to the old control tower, where Christian services take place. The chaplains organise and lead prayers at certain times in the prayer room.
  The airport has its own resident press corps, consisting of six photographers and one TV crew, serving all the major newspapers and television stations around the world.
  Most of Heathrow's internal roads are initial letter coded by area: N in the north (e.g. Newall Road), E in the east (e.g. Elmdon Road), S in the south (e.g. Stratford Road), W in the west (e.g. Walrus Road), C in the centre (e.g. Camborne Road).
caption: Central waiting area in Terminal 5
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