Heathrow Airport.

History

Heathrow Airport was officially inaugurated for commercial flights on May 31st, 1946. At first, the airport was called London Airport, but later the officials changed the name to Heathrow Airport because the site that was bulldozed for its construction was a village called Heathrow. This village existed since mediaeval times, but today the site holds Terminal 3 of the Heathrow Airport.

Richard Fairey bought the airport site for around £15,000 – £20,000 in 1930. He initially bought it to use for testing planes. Harold Balfour who was the WWI fighter persuaded Churchill’s war cabinet in the 40s that there needed an RAF base around Hounslow Heath. Later he exposed that his persuasion was a plan to build an airport that could then be used for commercial purposes.

It worked, and today it is the most crowded airport in the world. After the second world war, the newly inaugurated airport was open for flights and delayed many of its first ones. Within a year, approximately 60,000 travellers reached the Heathrow Airport.

Development

After the first flourishing decade, Heathrow Airport decided to expand its region by introducing new and improved terminals. The first three terminals: Terminal 1, 2, three were built during the 50s, but the management got all these so mixed up that they first had to replace the old ones with new ones.

Interestingly, Terminal 1 was later added in 1969 way. In 1986 another terminal was added on the south perimeter of the airport, Terminal 4. In 2008, Queen inaugurated another terminal for its expansion Terminal 5.

Constructional Controversy

Despite these constructional developments, enlargement and addition of terminals were controversial as most of the officials denied the adding of new terminals, including David Cameron. In fact, there was a heated debate in the parliament and concerned communities about the addition of a 3rd runway, but most of the people rejected the idea and filed a petition to stop from it happening.

Sadly, the government finally had given the go-ahead to the airport officials for the 3rd runway. The most successful era of Heathrow airport was the 80s and 90s when Heathrow airport became the major employer with employment offers to more than 70,000 individuals.