Why Does London Have So Many Airports?

by SharonKurheg

I grew up in New York City so I was always used to having 3 airports within a reasonable distance – JFK, LaGuardia and, the one closest to me, Newark. When I moved to Orlando, there was only one big airport in town. Although if you’re willing to drive an extra 45 to 75 minutes and have greatly diminished choices of flights and airlines, Sanford and Melbourne could be options, too. But again, there are 3.

So I always thought it was pretty cool to have 3 airports within a reasonable distance, especially in light of so many cities only having 1. But now I think I’m developing airport envy, because of London? They have 6 airports. SIX! The history of all the airports in London (including some that have disappeared) is pretty cool. Here’s a funny but informative history lesson on them all…

And now you know! 😉

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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary

4 comments

derek August 1, 2019 - 12:37 pm

Los Angeles has LAX, ONT, SNA, LGB, BUR. That’s 5 airports. New York has 3+3 and used to be 3+4 (the 4 little ones being Westchester County, Stewart, Islip, and little Republic Airport). London has a problem because many of its airports only have 1 runway.

The Chicago area mainly has 2 but really more with a liberal definition. ORD and MDW, of course but also Milwaukee, Chicago Rockford, Gary, and formerly Meigs until the terrorist attack by the Chicago mayor.

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SubwayNut October 25, 2020 - 1:39 pm

SBN is also a Chicago Airport, its the other end of the South Shore Line. I live in South Bend and will often fly out of SBN and back into a Chicago Airport or vise-versa (taking the train) when price and schedule make sense.

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kudos45454 November 18, 2021 - 7:32 pm

Chicago has 14 heliports, 6 small airports, e medium, and 3 large airports, namely midway, o’hare, and Rockford. There’s also 7 closed airports.

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SubwayNut October 25, 2020 - 1:37 pm

Flying to New York, I also consider Westchester and Islip, as my back-up airport options if there’s for example delays into the major airports or all flights were canceled. I have definitely had a few conversations with agent in DTW SkyClub connecting to NYC, with the usual LGA flight delays if flying into HPN was an option but the timing never worked out.

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