Airport Public Transport Rises
Fresh figures from the aviation regulator confirm two trends moving together: satisfaction among the people flying through Britain's major airports has ticked upward, and a growing share of them are reaching the terminal by train, Tube or bus instead of driving. Neither trend wavered during 2025, even with more passengers coming through the doors than the year before.
The regulator interviewed roughly 175,000 departing passengers across eight English airports over the course of the year — Heathrow and Gatwick among them, alongside Stansted, Luton and London City, plus Birmingham, East Midlands and Manchester further out. Between them, that group carried around 225 million passengers in 2025, a 2% rise on the year before, and five of the eight sit squarely within the wider London aviation market, which is a large part of why the results matter here.
Satisfaction held up well given how much busier these airports got. The survey's headline measure — how willing passengers were to recommend the airport they'd just flown from — landed at 8.39 out of 10 on average, up slightly from 8.36 the year before. That's a narrow movement in isolation, but it's worth weighing against everything an airport juggles simultaneously: security, bags, passenger information, boarding gates, and the surface transport feeding it all, where strain typically builds as volumes climb rather than easing off. None of which means every journey went smoothly: delays, overcrowding and transport hiccups are still very much part of the picture for plenty of travellers, a strong average score notwithstanding.
The real story worth digging into is how people are actually getting to these airports in the first place — and the direction of travel has been consistent for years now, not just a one-off blip. Public transport's share edged up to 38% in 2025 from 37% the year before, with cars and taxis between them covering the remaining 62%. Pull back further and the shift looks more significant still: back in 2019, roughly two-thirds of passengers — around 67% — were arriving by car or taxi. Six years on, that figure has dropped by about five percentage points, a gradual but real move away from the private vehicle as improved rail links, dedicated airport expresses and denser coach networks have given passengers more credible alternatives. Even so, private transport still carries close to two in three passengers to the airport, which is a reminder that road travel isn't going anywhere any time soon.
Where an airport sits on that spectrum turns out to depend heavily on geography. London City comes out clearly on top, with a 66% public transport share in 2025 — itself a point higher than the year before — meaning two-thirds of its passengers skipped the car altogether. Tucked into east London near Canary Wharf and plugged directly into the DLR, which in turn connects onward to the Underground and the Elizabeth line, London City is genuinely woven into the city's transport network in a way none of the other seven airports in this survey can really match — a huge advantage for anyone travelling light from central or east London in particular.
Stansted sits a clear second at 48%, also up a point on 2024 — a genuinely striking figure given how much further out the airport actually is compared with London City. The Stansted Express runs straight into Liverpool Street, other rail services reach beyond that, and a wide network of coaches covers London and the surrounding region besides; the station sitting directly under the terminal removes the need for any further transfer once passengers step off the train. None of that erases the case for road transport entirely, though — families, larger groups and anyone starting from somewhere the rail and coach network doesn't reach well still lean on cars and taxis to get there.
East Midlands Airport sits at the opposite extreme, and by some distance: a mere one in ten of its passengers made the trip by public transport last year, the lowest showing of any airport in the survey. The contrast with London City is really a story about geography and infrastructure rather than passenger preference — East Midlands draws from a wide catchment stretching across Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire, much of it small towns and rural areas with thin public transport links, and the airport itself has no direct rail connection, so anyone arriving by train still needs a bus or road journey to close the final gap. The lesson here is straightforward: getting people out of their cars takes more than encouragement, it takes transport links that actually start from wherever passengers are coming from.
London's own five airports, despite sharing a city, couldn't look more different on this measure. Heathrow arguably offers more ways to arrive than any other UK airport — two Underground-style rail lines, a dedicated express service and a dense bus and coach network — yet a sizeable share of its passengers still turn up by road, simply because its catchment stretches so much further than most. Gatwick's South Terminal sits right on top of a railway station with direct runs to Victoria, Bridge and beyond, linked to the North Terminal by an automated shuttle, making rail a natural choice for anyone near a direct line. Stansted's strength, as already covered, rests on its express service and coach network. Luton passengers arrive at Luton Airport Parkway and finish the journey on the automated DART, backed by its own set of coach and bus links into London and elsewhere. And London City's DLR connection remains the clear outlier at the top of the table. Five airports, one city, five genuinely different transport pictures — proof that the best airport for a given passenger often has as much to do with where they live as which flights are on offer.
Beyond how people travel, the survey paints a telling picture of who's actually flying. Leisure trips made up 87% of journeys in 2025, against just 13% for business — identical to 2024's split, but a long way from where things stood before the pandemic. Back in 2019, business travel accounted for around 19% of passengers against leisure's 81%, meaning the corporate share of UK air travel has shrunk noticeably over six years, likely some combination of video calls, remote working and tighter corporate travel policies, though the survey itself doesn't dig into causes. What it does confirm is that demand for holidays, visiting family and other personal trips has stayed robust throughout.
Age tells its own story within that split. Business travellers clustered mostly in the 35-to-54 bracket, while leisure passengers spread far more broadly across the age range — a gap that matters when airports and transport operators plan for who's actually coming through. A business traveller on a short trip tends to prize speed and a dependable arrival time above all else; a family heading off on holiday is usually weighing luggage space, child-friendly facilities and overall cost instead; someone visiting relatives outside a major city may have a different set of needs again. There's no single transport solution that fits all of them equally well.
None of this is only about what happens once passengers are through the doors, either. Airports have long poured attention into the inside of the terminal — security queue times, check-in, retail, the boarding process — but the trip either side of that building matters just as much to how the whole experience is remembered. A passenger who flies without a hitch but struggles to get home afterward is unlikely to come away thinking the day went well, and a missed train or an unexpected jam on the way in can sour the mood well before anyone reaches the gate. That puts rail services, road access, coaches, parking, taxi ranks and private hire pick-up points all squarely within an airport's job to get right, and the pressure on that whole system only grows as passenger numbers do.
Private transport staying dominant, even as its overall share slips, reflects genuine practical need rather than inertia. Plenty of passengers are carrying several bags, travelling with young children, or setting off at hours when public transport thins out considerably; others simply live somewhere that would mean two or three changes to reach the airport by train or coach. For journeys like that, one direct vehicle beats several connections every time. Group travel sharpens the arithmetic further: train and coach fares are charged per head, while a pre-booked private transfer is priced for the vehicle as a whole, so for a family or a group of friends, the total cost of several individual tickets can end up closer to — or even above — a single well-chosen vehicle than it first appears. The cheapest fare per person isn't automatically the cheapest way to move a group.
Timing adds its own layer of difficulty. Public transport doesn't fully stop overnight, but services thin out considerably in the small hours, and passengers still have to get themselves to a station or coach stop before the airport leg even begins — a very early departure from Stansted or Luton, for instance, can mean leaving home hours before the flight itself, which families with young children in particular may find easier to manage with one direct journey rather than several connections. Arrivals late at night carry a similar challenge in reverse, with flight delays, immigration queues and baggage reclaim all affecting exactly when a passenger actually steps out of the terminal — which is precisely why giving an accurate flight number to a pre-booked operator matters, since it's what lets a driver be timed against the real landing rather than the scheduled one.
Scale brings its own pressures too. Handling 225 million passengers across these eight airports in a single year means even a small uptick in numbers translates into real extra demand on trains, buses, coaches, parking and the roads feeding each terminal. Growing public transport capacity can take some of that strain off the road network, but it doesn't remove the need for well-designed taxi and private hire facilities alongside it — clear pick-up points, sensible routing and traffic that actually keeps moving all shape how smooth or stressful that final stretch feels, especially for anyone unfamiliar with a particular airport's layout.
A strong headline satisfaction score is also, by its nature, an average — it can't capture how differently a journey plays out depending on the airport, the airline, the terminal or simply what time of day someone's travelling. A relaxed mid-afternoon departure and a frantic early-morning peak can produce wildly different experiences at the very same airport, and transport problems on the approach can undo a smooth flight before it's even begun. Closing that gap takes airports and transport operators actually working together — on clearer information, more dependable services and connections that don't require guesswork.
Pull back far enough and three trends stand out from this year's figures: passenger numbers keep climbing while satisfaction holds its ground, public transport keeps gradually taking a bigger slice of how people arrive, and leisure travel keeps dominating a market that looks noticeably different from its pre-pandemic shape. All three point toward where investment is likely to go next — continued attention on rail and coach links at airports chasing more capacity, alongside cars, taxis and pre-booked transfers staying essential for the passengers public transport simply can't serve well. The goal isn't funnelling everyone onto the same mode of transport; it's making sure enough good options exist that each passenger can pick the one that actually fits their journey.
We operate round-the-clock private hire transfers covering the full set of London's airports — Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted, together with Luton, London City and Southend — with direct transfers between the terminal and a home, hotel, office or any other address a passenger chooses. For anyone travelling with family, children or a serious amount of luggage, that can beat juggling multiple changes between trains, buses and coaches, and we run vehicles sized for solo travellers right through to larger groups. On arrivals, we track the actual flight and time the driver to the real landing rather than the printed schedule. If there's one thing this year's CAA figures make plain, it's that passengers want genuine choice alongside convenience and reliability — rail, coach, bus or a direct transfer, whichever shape of journey actually suits the trip being made.
Written by London Airport Transfer for passengers travelling to and from London airports.