A Brief History

Stansted was constructed by the United States Army in 1942 as a bomber base and by 1944, over 600 aircraft were stationed there it played a major role in the Battle of Normandy.

After the war, the base was not needed and was transferred to the Air Ministry in 1947. The airport ended up under BAA control in 1966.

Initially, the airport was used by holiday charter operators but from the outset BAA planned to develop Stansted into London's third airport, to relieve Heathrow and Gatwick of future excess congestion. The airport's first terminal building opened in 1969 and was expanded the in 1970 to handle the growing number of passengers.

Construction of the current terminal building began in 1986 and was completed in 1991, and was designed by Sir Norman Foster.

American Airlines operated a between Stansted and Chicago in the early 1990s, but this was unprofitable and was withdrawn. Continental Airlines later operated a service between Stansted and Newark, New Jersey but withdrew for commercial reasons after September 11, 2001. In late 2005, Eos Airlines and MAXjet Airways commenced an all business class service from Stansted to New York-JFK and in April 2006, MAXjet expanded their service with flights to Washington DC. Pakistan International Airlines started services to Stansted in August 2006 and is currently operating 2 flights a week to Islamabad & Karachi.

Traffic

In 2004, the number of passengers using Stansted rose 11.7% to 20.9 million and in 2005 it rose by 5.3% to 21.9 million.

Tentative plans have been published for the addition of up to three more runways. If approved, Stansted is to get a second parallel runway which should allow the airport to increase its capacity from 12 million in 2000 to 74 million air passengers in 2030.