Which Airport has Longest Passenger Walk?

Which of the UK's airports has passengers walking the longest distance before they arrive at its departure gates? According to research carried out by insurance group Direct Line, it's the former London Gatwick Airport - now simply known as Gatwick Airport following Global Infrastructures acquisition of it in 2009.

The distance between Gatwick's entrance and its North Terminal gates is 1.12 miles and that, says Direct Line, exceeds the walks experienced by passengers at all other airports in the UK. These include Heathrow, with a 0.76 mile walk to the end of Terminal 5 and Manchester, where there's a walk of just over half a mile to carry out.

On the global scale, though, there are airports with much longer passenger walking distances. At Beijing Capital, for example, no less than two miles of walkways exist between the entrance and Terminal 3's departure gates. Furthermore, Atlanta, Zurich and Frankfurt's walks all exceed Gatwick's.

The Direct Line researchers didn't look at every single airport in the world when compiling their airport passenger walk distance report. Rather, they selected the UK's five busiest sites and compared them to several major international airports.

Airport Passenger Walk Distances

Here are the airport passenger walk distance results in full:

• Beijing Capital International Airport Terminal 3 - 2.0 mile walk
• Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport - 1.3 mile walk
• Zurich Airport 1.27 mile walk
• Frankfurt am Main Airport - 1.17 mile walk
• Gatwick Airport North Terminal - 1.12 mile walk
• Seoul Incheon International Airport - 1.05 mile walk
• Hong Kong International Airport - 0.98 mile walk
• London Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 - 0.76 mile walk
• John F. Kennedy International Airport - 0.7 mile walk
• Amsterdam Airport Schiphol - 0.61 mile walk
• Manchester Airport - 0.57 mile walk
• Dubai International Airport - 0.55 mile walk
• London Stansted Airport - 0.48 mile walk
• London Luton Airport - 0.33 mile walk

"Holidaymakers travelling from Gatwick may not realise they could face a journey of more than a mile to reach a departure gate", Direct Line's travel insurance head, Tom Bishop, explained in a statement. He continued: "We would advise them to plan ahead and allow plenty of time to reach their flight regardless of which airport they are travelling from.

"This is particularly important during the next few weeks as all of the major airports in the UK are likely to be very busy due to the peak summer holiday season."