Amsterdam has more flights from London this winter than any other destination. This is when all London airports are combined, so it's a city pair view. And if the destination has more than one airport with London service, as several do, these are included too. The fact that Amsterdam is just Schiphol is all the more impressive, likewise the ongoing restrictions at the airport because of its staff shortage.

The top ten: a summary

This winter (October 30th-March 25th), London's leading ten city pairs – shown in the table below – have 45,200 departing flights, according to the latest Cirium data. Put another way, one in four fights leaving the capital will be going to these places. Note that New York City isn't technically correct as Newark soon won't be considered a New York airport. However, I've included it for simplicity.

Examining city pairs rather than airport pairs yields very different insights, with some others included for clarity. For example:

1. 70% of the top ten involve five London airports
2. Heathrow is number one 90% of the time
3. The ten have an average of four airlines serving them
4. BA is number one half of the time, although that'd be somewhat different if BA CityFlyer was separated
5. Southend doesn't feature once (in winter 2019, it was in half of the top ten); now it has no winter routes
6. Glasgow dropped out, replaced by Frankfurt
7. Edinburgh has very rarely had only two airlines (there's no longer Flybe)
8. Amsterdam is number one despite no longer having Southend flights or Flybe from City

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The top ten table

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Up to 59 daily: Amsterdam

Amsterdam has always been a major market from London and the UK generally. According to the UK CAA, 4.9 million people flew between London and Schiphol in 2019. (Reduced to 1.3 million in 2020 and 560,000 in 2021.) That includes everyone: point-to-point (P2P), those connecting in Amsterdam, and those transiting in London.

Of the 4.9 million, booking data shows that approximately 3.7 million – or some three quarters – were P2P: they only traveled between the two cities. It means that, if spread over 365 days, London-Amsterdam had 5,068 P2P passengers daily each day.

A look at February 16th

This winter, London-Amsterdam has an average of 48 flights each way every day. The maximum of 56 is on just four specific dates, the first of which is Thursday, February 16th. On this single day, BA (including BA CityFlyer) and KLM (including KLM Cityhopper) have 20 flights apiece, easyJet 17, and Flybe two.

Flights leave London from 06:00 (easyJet from Gatwick) to 20:45 (KLM from London City) with up to seven services an hour. Heathrow has 22 departures, City 16, Gatwick 12, Luton six, and Stansted just three.

Which in the top ten have you flown? Let us know in the comments.