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Written question asked by Gareth Thomas (Labour) on Monday, 12 January 2026, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 15 January 2026 (named day). It was answered by Keir Mather (Labour) on Thursday, 15 January 2026 on behalf of the Department for Transport.

Aviation: Heathrow Airport and RAF Northolt

Question

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, how many non-military flights landed at (a) Heathrow (b) RAF Northolt in each of the last three years for which figures are available.

Answer

Data on aircraft movements at UK airports is collected and published by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). CAA aircraft movement data includes a ‘military’ category, but a split between arriving and departing flights is not provided.

Although Royal Air Force (RAF) Northolt does handle some civil flight movements, this is an RAF establishment, and data on aircraft movements at RAF Northolt is not collected by the CAA.

Data on the total number of aircraft movements at Heathrow, split by military and non-military, is provided in Table 03_1 of the annual CAA airport data publication and reproduced as Table 1 below. The last three complete years for which figures are available are 2022, 2023 and 2024.

Table 1: Aircraft movements at Heathrow Airport split by military and non-military

Year

Military

Non-military

Total

2022

0

380,305

380,305

2023

7

456,593

456,600

2024

5

476,114

476,119

Note: Non-military category includes commercial, test and training, private, official and business aviation movements.

Source: https://www.caa.co.uk/data-and-analysis/uk-aviation-market/airports/uk-airport-data/

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
104616
Session
2024-26
Subjects
Aviation Heathrow Airport RAF Northolt
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.parliament.uk