Heathrow Airport History

The development of Heathrow Airport dates from the Second World War although the development was not without some controversy. The official version of the origin of Heathrow Airport has always been that it was initially developed as an airfield during World War 2 and that at the end of the war it evolved into the main civilian airport for London.

The approval from the War Cabinet for the development was controversial, at the time the countrys resources were stretched due to attacks from V-1 flying bombs and preparations were being made for the Normandy Landings.

The first mention of the proposed airport in Air Ministry files is in mid-1943. It is clear that it was destined to be a civilian airport right from the start. The development of the site for the Royal Air Force was merely a ruse to circumvent a public inquiry and to quell criticism that the war effort was being diverted to matters that could await the end of hostilities.

In 1973 Harold Balfour, who was the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State between 1938 and 1944, stated in his biography that he deceived the cabinet committee over the requisitioning of land for post-war civil aviation needs. The British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) was party to the plot but complained about the unsuitability of the proposed layout of runways for their civil aviation requirements.

To maintain the ruse, a runway was built which was totally unsuitable for civilian purposes and which was subsequently abandoned without ever having been used. Development began in June as the first V-1 attacks rained down on the London area, one actually exploding in Longford on 13th June 1944. Stage 1 of the construction was complete when the airport was transferred to the Ministry of Civil Aviation on 1st January 1946. The RAF never used the airport and the first use of the airport was for a civilian flight, which took place for publicity purposes, when a British South American Airways Lancastrian aircraft took off on a long distance proving flight to South America. The airport was formally opened on 31st May 1946.

By the following year three runways had been completed and work on another three, subsequently abandoned as unnecessary, was going on. As traffic boomed, Heathrow Airport found itself with an ever-increasing demand for passenger facilities. The Queen inaugurated a new building in 1955 which is today's Terminal 2 and the tunnel which provides the main road access to Heathrow's central area was opened. With hindsight, that has proved to be a flawed concept as it struggles to cope with the burden of today's flow of airport traffic.

Next came the new Oceanic Terminal handling long-haul carriers, a function it still performs as Terminal 3, followed by the opening of Terminal 1 in 1968. Increased congestion in the central area led to the birth of Terminal 4 in 1986 on the south side of the airport, a modern facility but an inconvenient 10-20 minute transfer from the heart of Heathrow. The pressures on London's principal airport keep mounting.

The extension of the city rail link to the airport central area is now open

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