The pie charts illustrate the purposes for which visitors traveled through four UK airports—Gatwick, Heathrow, Luton, and Stansted—in the year 2016.
Overall, it is immediately apparent that holidays and visiting friends and family were the main reasons to travel, whereas business and other purposes were less common. Notably, Luton and Stansted airports were primarily used by travelers with a purpose of visiting friends and family, while Gatwick and Heathrow saw a majority of passengers traveling for holidays.
Looking at Luton and Stansted airports first, visiting friends and family was the most common purpose, accounting for 50% and 48% of travelers, respectively. Holiday travel ranked second in both airports, followed by business purposes, which had nearly identical proportions of 13% in Luton and 14% in Stansted. Finally, other purposes made up a mere 2% of travelers in both airports.
Turning to Gatwick and Heathrow airports, holiday travel accounted for more than half of the passengers at Gatwick. Meanwhile, visiting friends and family constituted around one-third of travelers at Gatwick and 37% at Heathrow. Business travel was more prominent at Heathrow, nearly double that of Gatwick. Similarly, those traveling for other reasons were the smallest group, making up 4% of passengers at Heathrow and 2% at Gatwick.