London Biggin Hill Airport Prepares to Shift Up a Gear. Again.

Improvements Will Allow Biggin Hill to Increase Traffic

London Biggin Hill Airport (EGKB) is implementing additional improvements that will allow it to grow further, following the significant industrial presence already established at the airport, notably Bombardier with its vast maintenance facility. This summer, it has been resurfacing the main runway 03-21 (grooved asphalt). It is on the verge of having a GPS approach to Runway 03, something many (mainly US) operators have been requesting so they can incorporate the airport in their operations. This is currently subject to test flights and is expected to become a published approach in November.

London Biggin Hill also has a new Runway Visual Range (RVR) reporting system, new runway edge lights, and centerline lights "for the first time," said Robert Walters, the airport's commercial director. All these enhancements will make Biggin Hill an even more viable option for business jet operators coming to London.

"Our journey started properly in 2018," after many years of business aviation stagnation following the financial crisis of 2008, said Walters. Yet he admitted that the groundwork for Biggin Hill's success in business aviation started many years before, with a key factor being the support from the local community and Council and the decision by the London Mayor to designate the airport as part of the city's strategic development plan.

Qatar-based Rizon Jet establishing a large hangar and FBO facility at Biggin Hill in August 2010 was also an eye-opening moment. That facility later became home to Bombardier and Signature Flight Support, before Bombardier decided to put Biggin Hill on the map – building a vast MRO facility on the old Runway 11-29 (now a taxiway) in March 2022. It became the Canadian manufacturer's main European base for heavy maintenance and supports its Global family of business jets. The company is now in the process of building a large hangar for painting aircraft, which Roberts said will make it a full-service center for its customers.

The opening of The Landing Hotel on the airport in 2023 was another major step forward, said Walters, while Oriens Aviation (the Pilatus dealer for the British Isles, among other things) moved to a larger hangar as it grew. Castle Helicopters (see below) also expanded its operations by taking on the former Oriens hangar, which was alongside its existing, maintenance-focused hangar.

The heritage side of the airfield has also expanded with The Heritage Hangar moving to a large hangar in 2016 as its fleet of restored Supermarine Spitfires expanded, along with its operations flying two-seat Spitfires. And the airport has also continued to invest in new hangars adjacent to the terminal/control tower building. The historic nature of this control tower means it will be central to the airport's plans to modernize the terminal building to better serve its own FBO operations for business aviation.

Taking a 6-Minute Helicopter Ride from Biggin Hill to London Battersea Heliport

A major attraction of London Biggin Hill Airport to business aviation has been the very fast transit into London – the 'Biggin to Battersea' helishuttle. Taking the shuttle is very easy from the Castle Aviation hangar and although we didn't land at Battersea the point was made, and luckily the cloud base was more than 1,000 ft so the pilot of our Leonardo AW109 'Trekker' was happy to go. We did a right turn at Battersea and followed the Thames east through London with landmarks all visible including the Houses of Parliament (Westminster), the Olympic Stadium, Tower Bridge and The Millennium Dome (now 'The O2') before we went south to Biggin Hill again – all-in-all a 17-minute flight and the only disappointment was the weather, with low cloud and showers, made it difficult to get a good aerial image of London Biggin Hill Airport.

Back on the ground Declan Lehane, Castle Aviation's operations manager, said the shuttle had proved to be a major success for the company, which is based at Liskeard in Cornwall, the most westerly county of England. The company is celebrating its 40th year in 2025 and has had a base at Biggin Hill for 12 years.

Lehane describes the airport as "the perfect place [around London] to base a fleet of helicopters" – this consists of AW109 twins and now also an AW139, which Lehane said reflects the increasing average size of the jets coming into the airport. These clients tend to expect a larger helicopter with more seats. He said as well as the Battersea shuttle, the charter side of the operation has "really picked up" as well, with flights to France increasingly popular.

Lehane said business is sometimes so brisk that the company can't meet demand, but it always tries its best to help, he said. Castle has "a lot of helicopters, but still not as many as we need," he added – and with the airport traffic likely to increase again with the recent runway improvements, it is likely to need even more helicopters available for the shuttle service.

Having a maintenance base next to what Lehane refers to as their "showroom" hangar – the one the clients usually use – helps enormously, he said. This includes maintaining the Leonardo AW109 and AW139 helicopters and it also has approval to maintain some other types such as Airbus EC135 (now H135) and Bell 505.

Castle continues to expand through organic growth (it has another AW139 on order from Leonardo, for example) and through acquisition – it recently purchased HeliWork, which is based at Thruxton Aerodrome west of London. Lehane said it will be an important move forward for Castle to be able to do its own blade repairs, as well as for third parties.

London Biggin Hill Airport marketing director Andy Patsalides, who hosted the tour of the airport and some of its tenants, said Formula One (which runs F1 motorsport) still has around 400 employees at its facility there – this illustrates the high-profile clients that continue to see Biggin Hill as a good place to be based, said Patsalides.

The airport tour concluded with a visit to Bombardier's maintenance facility, which is full predominantly of Global 7500s in various states of repair and overhaul – in fact it can fit a total of 18 7500-size aircraft, 9 on the north side and 9 on the south side (at 25,000 sq ft it was the largest hangar in Europe when built).

A company representative said Bombardier is very happy with its decision to grow its presence at Biggin Hill and said the move was working very well, with the new paint hangar which is being built at present designed to make it a 'one-stop shop' from when it opens in August 2026.

The main facility is also designed so that client employees can work and have meetings when at Biggin Hill – there are 16 offices and a boardroom and other facilities, along with a room where interiors can be designed with specialists from F-List. Drawers of samples are available so that bespoke interiors can be specified, which is useful given that aircraft that are moving to new owners often go to maintenance, or existing owners may choose to upgrade or refresh their aircraft.

Finally, Bombardier has a separate AOG (Aircraft-on-Ground) facility to respond if a customer's aircraft needs to be repaired somewhere remote.

Conclusion

London Biggin Hill Airport is clearly not the only option for business jet operators but compared to 20 or even 10 years ago, it has continued on a steady growth trajectory with some smart moves, including nurturing a positive and supportive relationship with its local community (e.g., strict noise measures must be observed, and it is a major local employer) and facilitating other FBOs, even though it runs its own. Visitors like choice, it realized early on.

Its latest smart move is to update the runway and navigation aids, as it has been told by operators that this will make it more viable and more attractive. It added a hotel, attracted maintenance businesses, and has many more ideas, such as more hangars and an aviation college to address the shortage of engineers, in particular.

If any move catalyzed Biggin Hill's growth, it is probably the increased operating hours that came in on May 1, 2017, giving US jets in particular more scope for using Biggin Hill. Since then, it seems some US operators have been asking for other things that will make Biggin Hill hard to beat. However, Farnborough (EGLF) is there too as a hard-to-beat, business aviation-focused airport without slot restrictions, though slightly further from London (42 miles from Battersea Heliport compared to 16 miles for Biggin Hill) – by road that is around 1 hr 15 mins compared to 1 hr given the road connection differences; almost 2 hrs and 1 hr 10 mins if looking at by road from the respective airports to The Shard, the iconic London landmark that always seems to catch the light when you're flying over London. One can see why Biggin Hill is so proud of the 6-minute helishuttle.