London Heathrow Airport (LHR) is renowned for its highly busy nature and lack of slots. Slots do exist, but they’re usually at less demanded times and in low quantities, unless, of course, an airline buys or leases them from another operator. The lack of capacity, along with high charges, is mainly why LHR has the world’s third-highest number of widebodies and why many airlines find it so difficult to access or grow at the airport.

Whether LHR is Europe’s busiest airport depends on the period examined. LHR outranked Istanbul Airport (IST), which is on the European side of the Bosphorus, in 2025, although with only 23,757 extra passengers. However, IST overtook it in the first four months of 2026, although with only 24,497 more passengers.

XiamenAir Will Fly To LHR

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As revealed by Sean Moulton on X, XiamenAir will fly to the UK’s busiest airport. It will operate from its namesake city of Xiamen, which is located on the southeastern coast of China in Fujian Province. Around five million people live in Xiamen’s metro area, which is not a lot by the country’s standards.

The first service will leave Xiamen Gaoqi International Airport (XMN) on September 9, with the brand-new route served three times weekly using the 287-seat Boeing 787-9. Ch-aviation shows it has six frames of that variant, each with 30 lie-flat beds in business (1-2-1; no privacy doors) and 257 in economy (3-3-3; 32″ pitch). SkyTeam’s XiamenAir will use LHR’s Terminal Four.

The schedule is shown below. The 6:35 AM arrival at LHR is notable, as it is a very busy time of the day for inbound flights. It is currently unknown how XiamenAir secured the peak-time arrival slots. The maximum block time to LHR, with headwinds, is a reasonable 12 hours and 45 minutes. This is because XiamenAir, like other Chinese airlines, will fly through Russian airspace. In contrast, British Airways’ Hong Kong flights, for example, are blocked at up to 14 hours and 45 minutes, as the airline must detour.

The Second Time That The UK Has Had XMN Flights?

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The airline’s schedule submission to Cirium Diio shows that it operated from XMN to LHR in 2020 and 2021, which was amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Photos from various sources support this position, including the one above. However, the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) indicates that zero passengers were transported to/from XMN in those two years. Regardless, it will be the airline’s first scheduled flight to the UK during ‘normal’ times.

Booking data shows that approximately 220,000 round-trip passengers flew between XMN and Europe between May 2025 and April 2026. Obviously, most travelers were Chinese. An estimated 85% of the traffic flew indirectly via other Chinese airports or the major SkyTeam hubs of Amsterdam Schiphol Airport (AMS) and Paris Charles De Gaulle Airport (CDG). XiamenAir continues to serve them nonstop.

With a modest 19,000 passengers, LHR was XMN’s largest European unserved market at the airport level. When all LHR-China airport pairs are considered, XMN ranked 16th. All XMN passengers flew indirectly. Most did so with Cathay Pacific via Hong Kong, along with Air China via Beijing Capital and China Southern via Guangzhou. XiamenAir will also capture sixth-freedom passengers flying from LHR to other places via XMN, such as other places in China, along with those in Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, and so on.

LHR Has Welcomed Other Airlines Recently

Credit: Alaska Airlines

Examining LHR’s schedules for 2025 to 2026 shows that various other airlines have joined or rejoined the UK’s busiest airport recently. After much grumbling and unawareness that an independent body allocates LHR’s slots, Nigeria’s Air Peace did so in 2025, along with India’s largest airline, IndiGo. Although only a separate unit, Lufthansa City flew to LHR for the first time last year, too.

In 2026, five airlines have already started flying to LHR or plan to do so later this year: Alaska Airlines, Beond, ITA Airways (returned), Pakistan International (returned), and XiamenAir (see earlier comments about 2020/2021). Whether all-premium carrier Beond does ultimately serve LHR is unclear, as all of its operations remain suspended.

Like any airport, some airlines have pulled out recently. Iran Air, TAROM, Turkmenistan Airlines, and Vistara did so in 2024 (Vistara was subsumed into Air India’s operations), while none did so last year. As IndiGo is ending widebody operations, that carrier is due to cease flying to LHR in October 2026.