Stansted is of course also in Essex. The only two major airports actually in London are City and Heathrow.
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Are Stansted, Gatwick etc. "London airports"?
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The only airport in London is City Airport because it is the only one that has a London post code.
Fawkes Cat
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Fixed that for you.
Sorry but Heathrow is located in the London Borough of Hillingdon. Frankly the postcode is a complete irrelevance, particularly when TW refers to Twickenham which is itself in London!
Exactly
Deafdoggie
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Royal Mail are always clear to admit that a postal code is just that. Its NOT a geographical location. It's purely their way to sort and route mail.
To me, they're all London airports because I've got to go to and through London to get to them - well, I drove to Stansted once I guess.
To me it comes down to perspective, when I lived in Portsmouth I liked Gatwick because it was easy to get to and didn't need a trip via London, and I'd have been less likely to describe it as a "London" airport than I do now.
It's less an issue than Paris, where if you're not careful you end up on "connecting" flights which use different airports. I'm not sure that happens much in the UK, other than deliberately by the passenger.
To me it comes down to perspective, when I lived in Portsmouth I liked Gatwick because it was easy to get to and didn't need a trip via London, and I'd have been less likely to describe it as a "London" airport than I do now.
It's less an issue than Paris, where if you're not careful you end up on "connecting" flights which use different airports. I'm not sure that happens much in the UK, other than deliberately by the passenger.
Re your last para it happened more when BAA owned all of Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted.
PsychoMouse
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Ted633
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You can get from Gatwick to Central London in half an hour. I think that's good enough to be called a 'London' airport.
Travel time (by the fastest available ground transport option) is probably the most useful metric; any airport that can be reached in less than an hour from Central London, in line with most cities' international airports, is a London airport. This means further airports can be brought into the fold as rail infrastructure improves.
Frequency and onward connections matter though; the time needs to account for the average waiting time for a train, and any connections from the London terminus to somewhere reasonably in Central London. That probably caps it at a 15 minute frequency (minimum), and a 40 minute journey time (maximum).
Frequency and onward connections matter though; the time needs to account for the average waiting time for a train, and any connections from the London terminus to somewhere reasonably in Central London. That probably caps it at a 15 minute frequency (minimum), and a 40 minute journey time (maximum).
kegdr
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Does that mean St Austell (PL25), Cornwall's largest town, is actually in Devon?
Does that mean Birmingham will become a “London” airport once HS2 opens?
BananaRepublic
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There's no question about Gatwick being a "London Airport".
The modern day Gatwick was originally built in the late 1950's (opened in 1958) specifically as London's 2nd airport, replacing several older, smaller London area airports.
It replaced the last remnants of Croydon airport, which had already run down to almost nothing after WW2, as well as Blackbushe and Bovingdon airports.
Most of Northolt's substantial commercial traffic, moved to Heathrow in the mid 50's.
The new Gatwick, was built mostly on the old racecourse and farmland to the north and west of the original 1930's airport of the same name.
The original 1930's "Beehive" terminal building, still stands in the middle of an industrial and business area, located half a mile to the south of the eastern end of the present day Gatwick runway.
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The modern day Gatwick was originally built in the late 1950's (opened in 1958) specifically as London's 2nd airport, replacing several older, smaller London area airports.
It replaced the last remnants of Croydon airport, which had already run down to almost nothing after WW2, as well as Blackbushe and Bovingdon airports.
Most of Northolt's substantial commercial traffic, moved to Heathrow in the mid 50's.
The new Gatwick, was built mostly on the old racecourse and farmland to the north and west of the original 1930's airport of the same name.
The original 1930's "Beehive" terminal building, still stands in the middle of an industrial and business area, located half a mile to the south of the eastern end of the present day Gatwick runway.
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gerjomarty
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There is actually a (maybe, sorta) definitive answer here. IATA has a list of Metropolitan Area Airport Codes that are three character codes designed to include all of the airport codes in a metropolitan area. Wikitravel have a full list here.
I haven't cross checked with the official IATA database, but the linked page gives these airports to be in the LON code for London:
I haven't cross checked with the official IATA database, but the linked page gives these airports to be in the LON code for London:
317 forever
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Even this one is not in the City of London, but in the London Borough of Newham.
Dr_Paul
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I'm pretty sure that a few years back I saw a proposal to make Kidlington another London Airport. Having Kiddles as 'London Oxford Airport' would be like having Denham as 'London Slough Airport' or Elstree as 'London Watford Airport'.So, no London Oxford, then?
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Airline Man
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Don’t Ryanair refer to Newquay as ‘London West’?
It’s not just a proposal, it’s how they brand themselves https://www.oxfordairport.co.uk/
Or did you mean being added to the IATA code for London?
AlastairFraser
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They'd try rebranding Prestwick Airport as Belfast East if you let them.
I can't find anything about this - surely this can't be the case
Gloster
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Rename Hurn as London Airport: it was at one time (late 1944 to mid-1946).
AlastairFraser
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It's satire about Ryanair labelling Beauvais as "Paris Beauvais" and Girona as "Barcelona Girona".
Thank youIt's satire about Ryanair labelling Beauvais as "Paris Beauvais" and Girona as "Barcelona Girona".
had no idea they did this but the reason I even looked it up in the first place was because I genuinely considered that they might have done it... 
AlastairFraser
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I wouldn't put it past themThank you
swt_passenger
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Always good for a laugh when driving past the entrance signs at the roundabout on Langford Lane.
Cloud Strife
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Thank you
They used to do Copenhagen (Malmo) and Vienna (Bratislava) as well, which was endlessly amusing for me.
But then again, look at Frankfurt-Hahn, which was branding itself that way for a long time.
BananaRepublic
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Bergamo airport (Orio) only became known as Milan-Bergamo, when Ryanair set up camp there, about 20 years ago.