London Heathrow Airport has appointed British poet David Laby, popular on TikTok, as its first Poet-in-Residence to mark the airport’s 80th anniversary, and has unveiled a commemorative poem titled “Gateway to the World” that can be read from the sky.
The poem has been painted in huge letters on the grounds of Bedfont Primary School, located near the airport, using biodegradable, environmentally friendly paint that will naturally disappear within a few weeks. It is designed so that only passengers on aircraft taking off from and landing at Heathrow Airport can view it from above.
David Laby spoke with more than 30 frontline staff and collected stories from the people who have shaped Heathrow Airport’s 80-year history before composing the poem.
Heathrow Airport opened in May 1946 as London Airport, handling just 63,000 passengers in its first year. Today, it serves 230 cities in more than 80 countries, with annual passenger numbers reaching 84.5 million in 2025. Since opening, the total number of passengers has reached 2.9 billion, and the total number of flights has exceeded 22 million. Over the past 80 years, the most popular destinations have been New York, Dublin, Amsterdam, and Paris.
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