I review airfields so you don’t have to. Usually that means a crumbling tarmac or grass strip, a friendly voice in the tower, and a bacon roll. but this week I wanted to be different. So it is London Heathrow. And before you ask, yes, I’ve landed here. Multiple times. Smooth touchdowns, every one. Close to the centreline too. I’ve even taken off a few times. Never with my hands on the controls, mind. I had absolutely nothing to do with any of it.
Let me be honest about my Heathrow experience. as a pilot with a single engine piston rating, with not even a turbine to my name, every single time I have landed or taken off from Heathrow, there was someone in the front seat with considerably more hours than me and at least one CAA exam I haven’t sat. I was further back. Seat 24C, probably. Doing my bit by keeping my seatbelt fastened while the seatbelt sign was on.
Getting in
This is where it differs from Elstree. At my home field I rock up, do the walkaround, and go. At Heathrow you need a ticket. An actual ticket. You provide details about yourself in advance. You also need a passport, even if you are flying to Glasgow, And at some point a stewardess will ask if you’d like the chicken or the pasta, which is not a question I’ve ever fielded on short final into EGTR.
The crew situation
In the 172 I’m pilot in command. The buck stops with me, which is terrifying for everyone. At Heathrow there’s a strict policy of putting someone competent up front. Two of them, in fact. They’ve got the hours, the ratings, the lot. I sit behind a locked door and trust them completely, which honestly is a lovely change of pace.
The marshals
Credit where it’s due, the marshals are familiar. They use the same signals at Heathrow as they do at Duxford, which is oddly reassuring. Although I suspect the difference is that at Duxford the pilot might still be digging through the checklist trying to remember what the bloke waving the lit-up sticks actually means. At Heathrow they just know.
Parking. Deep breath.
The aircraft parking itself is handled by people far above my pay grade, so I can’t tell you much. The car parking, though. The website calls it “reasonable.” It is not reasonable. It’s eye-watering. And it’s not just parking. They charge drop-off fees measured in minutes, with the added bonus of a tow-away service if you outstay your welcome. You need a ticket here too. Possibly a passport. Next they’ll be telling me I have to file a flight plan to reach level 3 of the multi-storey.
Security and the great hi-viz religion
If you love a hi-viz vest, you’ll feel at home. Everyone airside is wearing one. The marshallers, the baggage crew, the bloke whose job is to watch the bloke in the hi-viz vest. And do it up. Work at Heathrow and wander about with your hi-viz undone and you’ll get reported. Possibly a touch extreme, but their airfield, their rules. At Elstree the biggest airside threat is a student pilot, Dave in the tower, or an errant scone rolling down the taxiway. Here there are people with rather more serious kit, and they’d very much like to see that ticket again.
The bill, for the curious
Let’s talk money, because you came here for the parking horror and I won’t disappoint. Heathrow doesn’t really do a “landing fee” like a normal airfield. Most airfields charge you to land, it’s standard across the UK, a fee per visit that you grumble about and pay. We don’t pay at Elstree but only because we’re based there. Turn up as a visitor and you’ll pay like everyone else.
Heathrow does it differently again. They charge per passenger. The cap for 2026 is around £23.71 a head. Then they stack on a movement charge by weight, a noise charge that can run into thousands, an emissions charge by the kilo, and parking on top.
So what would they charge me, one bloke in a PA28? By their own per-passenger logic, about 24 quid. Almost reasonable. Except I’m one passenger, which makes me commercially pointless, and the security and handling pantomime around me would cost them more than I’m worth before I’d even found the Costa Coffee. They’re not set up for the individual unless you are worth millions. They’re set up for a wide-body full of holidaymakers, and I’m a man with a camera and a kneeboard.
Then there’s the noise charge. Heathrow bills the big jets thousands depending on how loud they are. At Elstree we don’t get charged for how noisy we are. The locals just phone the tower and complain instead. Same outcome, no invoice.
And they’re building a third runway for £33bn. Thirty-three billion now, anyway. Probably £66bn by the time they finish. But what’s a few billion between dodgy contracts? Just ask HS2. Either way, it’s a lot of brand new concrete I still won’t be allowed to land on. I’ll wave at it from seat 24C. I might even post a video the first time I fly from it.
Food. And the big question.
Heathrow does not have a bacon roll problem. It has a bacon roll abundance. There are multiple places to get one, which at any normal airfield would be the headline feature. My current favourite is Costa. They do a proper roll and a mean latte to go with it. It also costs a fortune, which I’m now fairly sure is where the name comes from. Cost-a Coffee. Makes sense once you’ve paid.
Beyond the rolls, the restaurants are genuinely good. Proper sit-down meals, a Gordon Ramsay if you fancy losing your holiday spending money on a burger before you’ve even left the country.
Right, cake. The big one. The investigation can now close, and I can confirm cake exists. Multiple locations have it, Costa included. Sometimes it turns up in a little cellophane wrapper with a Best Before date printed on it, which for a slice of cake feels a touch over-cautious. Sometimes it arrives on a nice big plate like a civilised airfield. Portion size, though? Not a patch on Elstree. And here’s the one mercy. Unlike a certain strip in Vegas, Heathrow does not have a cake dispensing machine. Which is probably for the best, because I’d only break it. Like I broke the one in Vegas. But that, my friends, is a story for another airfield review.
The toilets (and a small problem of airspace)
The loos are clean and there are loads of them, with cleaners darting in and out almost constantly. There’s just one catch for the GA pilot. Heathrow sits in Class A airspace, so to reach them in your own aircraft you’d need a full Instrument Rating. Got an IR(R), now rebadged as the IMC rating? Lovely qualification. Useless here. Class A doesn’t care how confident you are in cloud. Of course, if you arrive in seat 24C like I do, the toilets are right there. Tiny, but right there.
Caz’s Loo Review 🧻🧻🧻🧻 Four rolls, and she was very clear about the missing fifth. They don’t do loo roll. They do those funny little square things that get spat out of a box on the wall one at a time, and the box runs out, and it runs out regularly, and there’s usually a queue while you wait to find out whether it’s run out before your turn. Marked down accordingly.
A word on snacks
Here’s one for the road. They regularly ban nuts on the flight, on the grounds that someone aboard has a severe nut allergy. Fair enough, I’d not wish that on anyone. But I have a question, and I ask it in all innocence. Why is that someone always, without fail, on my flight? Every time. I’m not saying I’m cursed. I’m just saying that if there’s one nut-sensitive passenger in the whole of Heathrow that day, the universe will seat them three rows from me and confiscate my Snickers. I’m also allergic to screaming kids as well - can we ban them too?
So should you actually try it?
So should you, a GA pilot in your little Cessna or PA28 or whatever you fly, attempt to land at Heathrow? Even with PPR?
No. The answer is a big no.
That said, I’d pay good money to hear you phone Heathrow Tower and request PPR in a 172. The pause alone would be worth it. So go on. Try it. Call them up, ask nicely, and let me know how you get on. But don’t tell them I told you to do it - people will believe and do anything they see on the internet these days.
I’ll come and visit you in prison afterwards. I’ll bring a cake. There may be a file in it.
WAP Score: 1 out of 5 ✈️ One point. Not for the flying, which I didn’t do, but for being the only airfield I’ve “landed” at while eating a pretzel. As a GA destination it’s a zero. As a place that someone far more qualified than me lands brilliantly while I read the safety card, it’s a solid one.
