History Of Stansted Airport

The history of Stansted Airport has its origins in World War II in 1942

. Nowadays, it is hard to imagine it as the USAAF base it started out as.

It was used as a bomber airfield and maintenance depot for the B-26 until after D-Day, when America moved operations and the airfield became housing for German war prisoners. It wasn't until 1949 that UK based charter airlines started flying out of the location.

Over the decades, Stansted Airport has been developed through controversy and periods of idle times until the first terminal was built in 1966. While the original terminal catered to UK charter flights, the expanded current terminal was completed in 1991, and has been rated as the world's most attractive commercial airport complex.

It is now the fourth largest airport in the UK and the third busiest, with almost 23 million passengers annually, and it services 41 airlines and 160 destinations in 34 countries. Despite starts and stops in the commercial passenger airline business, it now caters to both business and leisure visitors.

The BAA has received permission to increase annual passenger counts to 35 million, with the more recent expansions, and the popularity of this airport has led many airline passengers to choose it over busy Heathrow or Gatwick.

The expansion of Stansted Airport has been a matter of hot contention during recent years, with BAA at odds with SSE (Stop Stansted Expansion) over plans to build a second runway. Applications for expansion have appeared at regular intervals, helped by the Labour Government's Aviation White Paper of 2002 which called for a huge increase in flights and which highlighted Stansted and Heathrow as airports that required extra runways.

Recently it has been realised that the need to curb climate change has to apply to aviation as well as other industries and the present UK coalition has accepted that continued airport expansion is not desirable or necessary. As a result the plans to build a second runway have been withdrawn.

Stansted Airport has a varied and interesting background, and its history is still unfolding. No doubt there will be more to tell over the coming years.

by: Louise Longworth

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