General · 11 August 2026
Istanbul overtakes Heathrow to become the busiest airport in Europe
Rossographer via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
The London hub handled 7.9 million travellers this July, falling short of the 8.15 million people who flew through Istanbul. Heathrow executives are using this slip in the rankings to urge the government to approve their privately funded third runway project. The airport also lost traffic on its Middle Eastern routes, which fell by a fifth following the war in Iran.
Reported by City AM · How we write briefs