London’s airports are 14–58 km from Trafalgar Square
A ticket names the city, not the airport. Which of the 5 it means is the difference between London City, 14 km out, and Stansted at 58 km — 4.1× the distance, on the ground, in your own time.
Two tickets to London, two different afternoons
- By car, clear roads
- 37 min
- On public transport
- 48 min
- By car, clear roads
- 1h 10m
- On public transport
- 1h 8m
44 km of difference — outside the fare, on your time and at your expense, and again on the way home. Cheap tickets are more often the second one. Check which three-letter code is printed next to London on yours.
Every airport, measured
from Trafalgar Square- London CityLCYclosest14km from Trafalgar Square
37 min by car, clear roads · 48 min on public transport · metro Circle → tram DLR · 1 change · £3.30
- HeathrowLHR26km from Trafalgar Square
41 min by car, clear roads · 43 min on public transport · metro Northern → train Elizabeth line · 1 change · £15.50
- GatwickLGW45km from Trafalgar Square
1h 24m by car, clear roads · 49 min on public transport · train southeastern → train Thameslink · 1 change
- LutonLTN55km from Trafalgar Square
1h 6m by car, clear roads · 1h 2m on public transport · metro Piccadilly → train E M R → train DART · 2 changes
- StanstedSTNfurthest58km from Trafalgar Square
1h 10m by car, clear roads · 1h 8m on public transport · metro Bakerloo → metro Victoria → train Stansted Express · 2 changes
What the measurements show
3 airports here are an hour or more from Trafalgar Square by road
Driving time on the shortest route with clear roads, which is a floor and not a typical journey. At that length the transfer has stopped being an arrival procedure and become a second leg of the trip:
- GatwickLGW1h 24m · 49 min by transit
- StanstedSTN1h 10m · 1h 8m by transit
- LutonLTN1h 6m · 1h 2m by transit
The published run to Gatwick beats the car by 35 min
Measured against a drive on empty roads, which is the most generous version of the car. The gap in ordinary traffic is wider than this:
- GatwickLGW49 min vs 1h 24m · train southeastern → train Thameslink
2 airports here need two or more changes
A duration does not describe a connection. Two changes with a suitcase and a departure time is a different journey from one direct run of the same length:
- LutonLTN2 changes · metro Piccadilly → train E M R → train DART
- StanstedSTN2 changes · metro Bakerloo → metro Victoria → train Stansted Express
The published fares here run £3.30 to £15.50
Both are prices Google itself returned, in the same currency, so they can be set against each other. Per person, each way.
- London CityLCY£3.30 · 48 min
- HeathrowLHR£15.50 · 43 min
Price the whole journey, not the flight into London
This page measures distances that do not change. Prices and departure times change hourly, so they are not here — Pathioo fetches those live, adds the journey to and from the airport at both ends, and gives you one total from address to address.
Where these numbers come from
Every kilometre is a Google Directions API response, measured on 2026-09-16 from Trafalgar Square to the terminal — to the airport's own address, not to a point on a map. Those are two different things and they can differ by a factor of two.
We measure the shortest route at four in the morning, because a road chosen around traffic describes the traffic and not the distance: asked of Gatwick and central London it returned 83 km at rush hour and 45 km overnight. That is why driving times are given as "clear roads" — a floor, not a promise.
Transit is the fastest published run with no departure time attached, and where two runs finish within five minutes of each other the one with fewer changes is the one shown. Every leg is measured into the airport, never back: a timetable is not symmetric, and the direction with a deadline is the one worth printing.
You will not find a ticket price, a departure time or an airline here. Those live shorter than this page does, and appear only in the search itself, straight from the airline's API.