If you’ve booked a British Airways flight and assumed it leaves from Heathrow, it’s worth double-checking. Schedule data reported by Simple Flying shows that BA has stopped flying between Heathrow and 77 airports worldwide over the past decade — 50 of them in Europe alone. This isn’t a single dramatic announcement so much as a decade of quiet route churn, and crucially, it doesn’t mean BA has abandoned all of these destinations. In many cases, particularly on leisure routes, the airline has simply moved the flight to London Gatwick instead, with 21 of those routes continuing there under BA EuroFlyer through 2026 and into 2027. The practical upshot for travellers: if your route isn’t listed at Heathrow anymore, it may well still exist — just from a different London airport, and possibly on a different airline entirely.

Why Your Route Might Have Moved, Not Disappeared

London is unusual in having six airports serving the same metropolitan area, and airlines shuffle routes between them constantly for reasons that have nothing to do with passenger demand disappearing — slot availability at Heathrow, aircraft deployment strategy, and cost differences between airports all play a part. British Airways’ EuroFlyer operation, based at Gatwick, exists specifically to run short-haul European routes the airline no longer wants to fly from its congested, expensive Heathrow slots. So a route “cut from Heathrow” frequently means “now flying from Gatwick” rather than “no longer available with BA at all.”

The first practical step, before booking anything else around your trip, is to check exactly which airport your specific flight uses — not which one you flew from last time, and not which one you’d assume based on the airline. Confirm it on your booking confirmation or the airline’s own site, since guessing wrong changes your entire journey into London.

Getting Between London’s Airports and the City

Fares checked against operator websites, 5 September 2026 — rail and coach prices vary by how far ahead you book, so treat these as a guide rather than a guarantee.

Gatwick Airport

The Gatwick Express is the fastest option, running non-stop to London Victoria in about 30 minutes, but it’s also the most expensive at roughly £20–£24 for a standard single, more if bought on the day rather than in advance. Southern and Thameslink trains cover the same route (Thameslink also calls at St Pancras, useful if you’re connecting to Eurostar) in only 5–15 minutes more, for noticeably less — typically £12–£15 for a single, and cheaper again if you book an Advance fare ahead of time.

The National Express coach to Victoria Coach Station is the cheapest option on paper, from around £8, but takes closer to 90 minutes and is genuinely at the mercy of traffic on the M23 and A23 — worth avoiding if your onward connection is tight.

Stansted Airport

The Stansted Express runs to Liverpool Street in around 47 minutes, with fares from roughly £20–£21 for a walk-up single, though booking ahead online typically brings this down. The National Express coach network is the budget option here, with fares from around £8–£10 and journey times of 50–90 minutes depending on the specific route and time of day — a genuinely reasonable trade-off if you’re not in a rush and travelling light.

Luton Airport

Luton doesn’t have a station directly at the terminal, so the standard route is a train (Thameslink or East Midlands Railway) to Luton Airport Parkway, followed by the short DART shuttle link straight into the terminal — combined, this takes around 30–40 minutes from St Pancras and costs from roughly £10.60–£16 depending on how far ahead you book, with the DART fare included in most through-tickets. As with the other airports, a National Express coach direct to Victoria Coach Station undercuts the train on price (from around £6–£8) but takes considerably longer, typically 60–90 minutes.

London City Airport

London City is genuinely the simplest of the lot, since it’s inside the TfL network rather than requiring a separate rail operator or ticket. The DLR runs directly into the terminal and connects to Bank and the wider Underground and Elizabeth line network in around 20–25 minutes, for a standard TfL zonal fare of roughly £3.30–£3.90 with contactless or Oyster — no separate airport ticket required at all, and by far the cheapest airport connection in London.

The Best and Cheapest Option Overall

There’s no single universal answer, since it genuinely depends on which airport you’ve landed at, but a few patterns hold across all of them. If your absolute priority is cost and you’re not fighting a tight connection, the National Express coach network is consistently the cheapest way in or out of Gatwick, Stansted and Luton, typically for a third to a half of the equivalent Express train fare — the trade-off is a journey that can run to 90 minutes and is exposed to traffic in a way trains simply aren’t.

If you want a genuine balance of speed and price rather than the absolute cheapest fare, the ordinary Southern, Thameslink or Great Northern train services (rather than the branded “Express” services) are usually the smarter choice: at Gatwick and Stansted in particular, the standard train is only a few minutes slower than the Express but meaningfully cheaper, especially if booked as an Advance single ahead of travel. Railcards and group discounts (three or more passengers) can shave the price down further on these routes. London City is the one clear exception to all of this — the DLR is simultaneously the fastest and cheapest option, so there’s no trade-off to make there at all.

Travelling as a Group? Consider a Private Transfer

Public transport works well for solo travellers and couples, but the maths changes once you’re travelling as a family or a larger group. Rail and coach fares are charged per person, so a party of four or five booking individual Gatwick Express or Stansted Express tickets can easily end up paying more in total than a single fixed-price private car covering the whole group — without the added hassle of managing multiple tickets, coordinating everyone through a station, or hauling luggage across platform changes.

For groups landing at any of London’s airports, a pre-booked private transfer is genuinely worth pricing against the per-person rail fare before assuming the train is automatically cheaper. Companies such as UK Airport Transfer Services, a London-based private hire operator with TfL-licensed drivers, offer fixed-price, door-to-door transfers between any of the London airports and your accommodation, with the price agreed upfront rather than changing with demand — particularly useful arriving late at night, with heavy luggage, or when a missed connection between train and Tube would otherwise cost you more time than the transfer itself.

Frequently Asked Questions

Has British Airways really cut 77 routes from Heathrow?

Yes, according to schedule analysis reported by Simple Flying, BA has stopped operating 77 routes from Heathrow since 2016. However, many of these haven’t disappeared entirely — a significant number, particularly in Europe, have simply moved to Gatwick under the airline’s EuroFlyer operation.

How do I know which London airport my flight uses?

Check your booking confirmation or the airline’s own website directly rather than assuming based on a previous trip — the same route number or destination can shift between Heathrow, Gatwick and other London airports over time.

What is the cheapest way to get to a London airport?

National Express coaches are generally the cheapest option to Gatwick, Stansted and Luton, though slower than the train. For London City, the DLR is both the cheapest and fastest option, since it runs on standard TfL fares.

Is a private transfer cheaper than the train for groups?

It can be, particularly for groups of three or more with luggage. Since train and coach fares are charged per person, a fixed-price private transfer for the whole group is worth comparing directly against the total cost of individual tickets.

For more on getting around once you’ve landed, see our guides on Heathrow to Central London: Every Way to Get There and How to Prepare for a Trip to London.