Heathrow welcomed a record 75.7 million passengers in 2016, up one per cent on the previous year. Passenger charges fell by one per cent at the UK’s largest airport, as Heathrow retained its position as Europe’s best hub for the third year running.

Heathrow’s expansion programme has passed its first delivery milestone and is advancing on schedule as the government published its draft National Policy Statement on a third runway at the UK’s hub earlier. Now begins 16 weeks of public consultation across the country on the draft NPS, before submitting a final version for a vote in parliament this coming winter.

Star Alliance member Air India has successfully moved all its operations at London Heathrow’s Airport from Terminal 4 to Terminal 2, the home of Star Alliance. The national airline of India operates up to eight daily flights in and out of Heathrow with either Boeing 777 or Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft and has been serving London for nearly 70 years.

The warmth of a welcome home has been captured in a new Channel 4 television programme ‘Arrivals’, filmed exclusively at Heathrow. The one-hour programme, narrated by Julie Walters, is a refreshingly warm and intimate insight into the lives of some of the thousands of people travelling across the world as they pass through the arrivals halls of Heathrow’s four terminals.

The expansion of Heathrow has emerged as a bright spot for Parliament – with 74 per cent of MPs now saying they back a third runway at Britain’s hub airport, a record level for the project. MPs ranked an expanded Heathrow as one of Britain’s top infrastructure projects – providing the most long-term benefit to the economy and benefitting all the regions of the UK.

Heathrow is to commence the preparation of a planning application to expand the airport with a new runway. The application is intended to be formally submitted in 2019, after the government has designated the National Policy Statement.