London Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, City, and Southend collectively have non-stop flights to 250 European airports this year. They include the newly reintroduced Antwerp, the world’s Diamond capital, this time connected to London City by Luxair. Dublin has more London services than anywhere else, followed by Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Geneva, and Barcelona. But which European airports no longer have flights to the UK capital?
74 airports have lost London flights
Some 74 airports across Europe have lost London non-stops, according to Cirium data. They’re shown in the map below, although it is hard to ‘read’. It is based on comparing those served in 2023 with those operated sometime since 2003. Some have ended very recently. For example, Durham, Leeds Bradford, and Terceira (Azores) were served last year.
But first, some caveats. The analysis is based on airports that had at least 20 London flights. Due to the war and the consequences of it, Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus, which are currently unserved, are excluded. I have also not looked at Turkey or the Caucasus. Some of the airports which have lost London flights are simply because they’ve moved to a nearby airport, such as Treviso to Venice Marco Polo, Skavsta to Stockholm Arlanda, Lubeck to Hamburg, Brescia to Verona. The importance of Ryanair is clear to see.
Image: GCMap.
I have excluded airports that have closed or no longer accept commercial flights. It means the likes of Berlin Tegel, Berlin Schönefeld, Blackpool, Bucharest Baneasa, Gothenburg City, Murcia San Javier, and Plymouth, among others, don’t appear on the map; I flew to most of these seven.
18 French airports are no longer served
Some 18 airports in France no longer have London flights: Angers, Angouleme, Avignon, Brest, Caen, Chateauroux, Clermont Ferrand, Deauville, Dinard, Dole, Lorient, Metz/Nancy, Pau, Reims, Rochefort, St Etienne, Strasbourg, and Vatry. Might Brest and Pau, both served for years, ever return from London?
Startup l’odyssey was planning to serve Deauville-London City before introducing other no-longer-served northern French airports to City. Deauville, in Normandy, last had London flights in summer 2017.
France is followed by the wider UK (8), Germany (7), Italy (7), and Spain (6). Not surprisingly, London is no longer connected by air to Cardiff, Carlisle, Durham, Exeter, Leeds Bradford, Liverpool, Prestwick, and Sumburgh. It is hard to believe that Exeter had London City services by the original Flybe as recently as early 2020. Obviously, most will never reappear.
Photo: Flybe.
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What about Central and Eastern Europe?
When the caveats mentioned above are considered, few airports in Central and Eastern Europe have lost London flights. They are Balaton, Hungary (Ryanair; 2006-2011); Maribor, Slovenia (Ryanair; 2007-2008); Osijek, Croatia (Ryanair; 2014-2016); Tuzla, Bosnia and Herzegovina (Wizz Air; 2016-2017); and Pardubice, Czech Republic (Ryanair; 2017-2019). Only Maribor, Slovenia’s second-largest but still small city, reappeared: defunct Adria operated briefly to Southend in 2015.
What do you make of it all? Let us know in the comments.
