London has four big airports, and for many trips only one of them flies your route nonstop. Searching "London" on a booking site mixes them together and hides which one that is.
This guide is built from flights we actually saw depart Heathrow (LHR), Gatwick (LGW), Stansted (STN) and Luton (LTN) between 16 September and 16 October 2026, using flight records from AeroDataBox. It is a 30-day snapshot of what really flew, not a list of announced routes. You can explore each network on a map: Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted and Luton.
London City (LCY) and Southend (SEN) are not covered. They are not in our set of airports with observed flight data, so we cannot say what they flew in this window, and we will not guess from older schedules.
The short answer
Counting only routes flown by scheduled passenger airlines at least nine times in the window (roughly twice a week or more):
| Heathrow (LHR) | Gatwick (LGW) | Stansted (STN) | Luton (LTN) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Destinations | 196 | 178 | 179 | 120 |
| Countries and territories (incl. UK) | 83 | 64 | 38 | 35 |
| Flights on those routes in 30 days | 21,583 | 13,717 | 9,153 | 6,552 |
| Routes averaging a flight a day or more | 155 | 117 | 108 | 78 |
| Destinations over 2,485 mi (4,000 km) | 96 | 38 | 2 | 0 |
| Furthest destination | Perth, 9,015 mi (14,508 km) | Singapore, 6,756 mi (10,872 km) | Dubai, 3,402 mi (5,475 km) | Hurghada, 2,456 mi (3,952 km) |
| Share of flights to sun destinations | 14% | 54% | 42% | 46% |
Distances are great-circle figures between airport coordinates (our calculation). "Sun destinations" means Spain, Portugal, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Malta, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Cape Verde, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania and Bulgaria. Flight totals count every departure on a qualifying route, so a few private jets sharing a busy route are included.
Together the four airports reached 363 different destination airports. Only 41 of them were served from all four, and 193 were served from just one. That second number is the reason this guide exists.
The busiest routes from each airport
Counts are flights we observed on the route in 30 days. Every route in these tables averaged at least one flight a day.
Heathrow
| Destination | Flights in 30 days | Airlines seen |
|---|---|---|
| New York JFK | 707 | American, British Airways, Delta, JetBlue, Virgin Atlantic |
| Dublin | 587 | Aer Lingus, British Airways |
| Amsterdam | 463 | British Airways |
| Madrid | 429 | British Airways, Iberia |
| Frankfurt | 424 | British Airways, Lufthansa, Lufthansa City Airlines |
| Munich | 420 | British Airways, Lufthansa |
| Paris Charles de Gaulle | 411 | Air France, British Airways, Korean Air |
Gatwick
| Destination | Flights in 30 days | Airlines seen |
|---|---|---|
| Malaga | 437 | British Airways, easyJet, Jet2, TUI, Vueling, Wizz Air UK |
| Barcelona | 359 | easyJet, TUI, Vueling |
| Alicante | 343 | British Airways, easyJet, Iberia, Jet2, Ryanair, TUI, Vueling |
| Faro | 326 | British Airways, easyJet, Jet2, Wizz Air UK |
| Palma de Mallorca | 300 | British Airways, easyJet, Jet2, TUI |
| Dublin | 291 | Ryanair |
Stansted
| Destination | Flights in 30 days | Airlines seen |
|---|---|---|
| Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen | 287 | AJet, Pegasus |
| Dublin | 283 | Ryanair |
| Edinburgh | 201 | easyJet, Ryanair |
| Belfast International | 197 | easyJet, Ryanair |
| Palma de Mallorca | 167 | Jet2, Ryanair, TUI |
| Rome Ciampino | 150 | Ryanair |
Luton
| Destination | Flights in 30 days | Airlines seen |
|---|---|---|
| Barcelona | 253 | easyJet, Ryanair, Wizz Air UK |
| Palma de Mallorca | 253 | easyJet, Jet2, Ryanair, TUI, Wizz Air UK |
| Amsterdam | 214 | easyJet |
| Alicante | 210 | easyJet, Jet2, Ryanair, Wizz Air UK |
| Faro | 184 | easyJet, Jet2, Ryanair, Wizz Air UK |
| Tirana | 167 | Wizz Air UK |
Routes only one airport has
These are destination airports that only one of the four served nine or more times in the window. A city with two airports can still show up here: Rome Ciampino is Stansted-only, but Rome Fiumicino is served from all four.
Only from Heathrow: 83 destinations, 72 of them long haul
Heathrow is the only one of the four with nonstops to most of the US. It had 31 US destinations in the window; Gatwick had three (New York JFK, Orlando and Tampa), and Stansted and Luton had none. The Heathrow-only list includes:
| Region | Examples (flights in 30 days) |
|---|---|
| US | Chicago (309), Los Angeles (304), Newark (274), Boston (244), Washington Dulles (206), San Francisco (206), Seattle (171), Dallas-Fort Worth (171), Denver (103), Austin (69), San Diego (64), Nashville (34) |
| Canada and Latin America | Vancouver (81), Calgary (69), Mexico City (69), Sao Paulo (99), Bogota (34), Rio de Janeiro (34) |
| Asia and Africa | Delhi (321), Mumbai (274), Hong Kong (206), Tokyo Haneda (176), Seoul (103), Kuala Lumpur (103), Johannesburg (103), Beijing Daxing (34) |
| Middle East | Abu Dhabi (137), Riyadh (103), Jeddah (56), Muscat (47) |
| Short haul | Milan Linate (210), Brussels (197), Belfast City (197), Newcastle (159) |
Only from Gatwick: 34 destinations
Gatwick's unique routes are a mix of Caribbean and Indian Ocean leisure and Scandinavian links: Bergen (73), Sharjah (56), Tunis (47), Cancun (44), Montpellier (43), Punta Cana (35), Mauritius (34), Stavanger (30), Trondheim (21), St Lucia (21), Antigua (17), Amritsar (17) and Kingston, Jamaica (13). It also had the only St. John's, Newfoundland flights (17, WestJet).
Only from Stansted: 55 destinations
Almost all of these are Ryanair, and many go to secondary airports in Italy, Germany, France and Poland: Rome Ciampino (150), Bergamo (120), Eindhoven (103), Frankfurt Hahn (73), Warsaw Modlin (64), Nuremberg (60), Bremen (56), Carcassonne (30), Cagliari (30) and Aarhus (34). Ankara (39) on AJet and Pegasus is the main non-Ryanair exception.
Only from Luton: 21 destinations
Luton's unique list is Central and Eastern Europe, mostly on Wizz Air: Lublin (86), Suceava (56), Bourgas (47), Bacau (43), Iasi (43), Dortmund (34), Craiova (34), Debrecen (30), Sibiu (30), Pristina (30) and Yerevan (9).
Who flies from where
The airline mix decides fares, bag rules and connections, so it matters as much as the destination list. These are the number of qualifying routes each airline flew from each airport.
| Airport | Main airlines (routes) | Airlines in total |
|---|---|---|
| Heathrow | British Airways 132, Virgin Atlantic 21, American 10, United 7, Air Canada 6, Delta 6 | 77 |
| Gatwick | easyJet 100, British Airways and BA Euroflyer 53, TUI 37, Jet2 27, Norwegian 11 | 52 |
| Stansted | Ryanair and Ryanair UK 150, Jet2 48, TUI 12 | 19 |
| Luton | Wizz Air, Wizz Air UK and Wizz Air Malta 60, easyJet 60, Ryanair 30, Jet2 20 | 10 |
British Airways was the only airline we saw on 77 Heathrow routes. Ryanair (with Ryanair UK) was alone on 106 Stansted routes, and Wizz Air on 36 Luton routes.
For Nordic travellers, the split is clear. Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm were flown from Heathrow (British Airways), Gatwick (Norwegian, plus easyJet to Copenhagen) and Stansted (Ryanair), but not from Luton. Helsinki had 137 flights from Heathrow on Finnair, against 34 from Stansted and 21 from Gatwick. Bergen, Stavanger and Trondheim were Gatwick-only.
Getting there from central London
As the crow flies from Charing Cross, Heathrow is about 14.6 mi (23.5 km) away, Gatwick 25.0 mi (40.2 km), Luton 27.4 mi (44.1 km) and Stansted 30.4 mi (48.9 km) (our calculation). Rail links matter more than distance:
| Airport | Fastest rail link | Journey time and frequency |
|---|---|---|
| Heathrow | Heathrow Express from Paddington | About 15 minutes, every 15 minutes (Heathrow) |
| Heathrow | Elizabeth line | Under 45 minutes to central London, every 30 minutes (Heathrow) |
| Heathrow | London Underground (Piccadilly line) | Under an hour, every 10 minutes (Heathrow) |
| Gatwick | Gatwick Express from Victoria | 30 minutes nonstop, twice an hour (Gatwick) |
| Gatwick | Southern and Thameslink | 30 to 45 minutes; Thameslink serves London Bridge, Blackfriars, City Thameslink, Farringdon and St Pancras (Gatwick) |
| Stansted | Stansted Express from Liverpool Street | Average 48 minutes, most off-peak trains 47; every 15 minutes (RailAdvent, citing Greater Anglia) |
| Luton | Train from St Pancras to Luton Airport Parkway, then the DART shuttle | 32 minutes to the terminal on the fastest non-stop train, about 40 on Thameslink; the DART itself is a three-minute ride (Head for Points) |
Two practical points. Heathrow Express arrives at Paddington, not the West End, so add a connection. And at Luton, buy a ticket to "Luton Airport" rather than "Luton Airport Parkway": the airport ticket includes the DART fare, which otherwise costs extra (Head for Points). Timetables change and engineering works close lines on weekends, so check before an early flight.
Who should not bother crossing London
Pick the airport on your side of town when the route is everywhere:
- Spain, Portugal and the big Mediterranean islands. Malaga, Barcelona, Faro, Palma, Ibiza and Tenerife South were flown from all four, and Alicante from all but Heathrow. Choose by the airport nearest you, then by airline.
- Dublin, Edinburgh and Glasgow. All four airports run them daily. Belfast is split: Belfast City from Heathrow only, Belfast International from the other three.
- Major European capitals. Amsterdam, Paris Charles de Gaulle, Madrid, Lisbon, Prague, Budapest and Athens were served from all four, though Stansted had only nine flights to Paris in the window.
- Istanbul and Tel Aviv. Both were served from all four airports.
Cross town for the routes in the "only from" lists: Heathrow for almost anything in North America, Asia or Africa, Gatwick for the Caribbean and western Norway, Stansted for Ryanair's regional Europe, Luton for Romania.
How to read the counts
A 30-day count converts to a weekly frequency if you divide by about 4.3. So 9 flights is roughly twice a week, 30 is about daily, and 100 or more is three or more a day.
Low counts in a mid-September to mid-October window usually mean a summer route winding down. Gatwick had 27 destinations with 13 or fewer flights, Stansted 33, Heathrow and Luton 16 each. Many are Greek islands and smaller French and Italian airports, like Stansted to Samos or Gatwick to Bastia (9 each). Expect some to pause over winter, and check the airline's timetable for your dates.
About this data
Flights were recorded by AeroDataBox and aggregated by us for departures from LHR, LGW, STN and LTN between 16 September and 16 October 2026. "Flights observed" counts flights, not seats or passengers. We left out routes flown only by business jets, cargo airlines, government aircraft or ad-hoc charters, routes between London airports, and UK domestic legs flown only by holiday airlines. Airline names are as reported, so a route can list a parent airline and its subsidiary separately. Distances are great-circle calculations between coordinates. London City and Southend are not in our observed set.
If something goes wrong on the day, our guide to EU261 and UK261 compensation covers delays from all four airports, and nonstop vs connecting flights helps when the nonstop is from the wrong side of London.
Frequently asked questions
Which London airport has flights to the United States?
Heathrow, by a wide margin: 31 US destinations in our window. Gatwick had New York JFK (Norse Atlantic), Orlando and Tampa. Stansted and Luton had none.
Is Gatwick or Heathrow better for a beach holiday?
Gatwick. 54% of its flights went to sun destinations, against 14% at Heathrow, and it had the Caribbean leisure routes Heathrow lacked, like Cancun, Punta Cana and Antigua.
Can I fly long haul from Stansted or Luton?
Barely. Stansted's furthest route was Dubai on Emirates, and Luton's was Hurghada in Egypt on easyJet. Neither had flights to the Americas, South Asia or East Asia.
Which London airport is quickest to reach from the city?
Heathrow, if you start near Paddington: the Heathrow Express takes about 15 minutes. Luton is 32 minutes from St Pancras on the fastest train, Gatwick 30 minutes from Victoria, and Stansted about 47 to 48 minutes from Liverpool Street.
Why are London City and Southend missing?
They are not among the airports we have current observed flight data for, so we left them out rather than guess. Search them separately, and use our guide on how to find direct flights to check every London airport for your dates.