London Calling: Brexit becomes reality for U.K. airlines. But it’s not the only big development.

Airlines serving London have a lot to think about following last week’s Brexit vote. But Brexit is far from the only thing on their minds. Last year, the U.K.’s capital was again the world’s largest airline market, based on the 155m passengers handled at its six major airports: Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, City and Southend. For comparison’s sake, New York, the world’s second busiest airline market, saw just 123m passengers at its three big airports. The combined figure for Tokyo’s two main airports was 113m, while the total at Atlanta’s only major airport—the world’s busiest— was 101m. London’s market is growing too, if a bit less than the world average. In 2015, traffic at the six airports grew a solid 6%, incidentally the same growth rate seen in New York and Atlanta— Tokyo’s was a bit slower. But within that figure was significant variation by airport, with Heathrow’s slot constraints limiting growth there to just 2% and Gatwick, the city’s second busiest airport, meeting the regionwide average of 6%. Trends were more bullish at the two airports best known for their low-cost carriers, namely Stansted with 13% growth and Luton with 17%. These rates could slow, of course, with any Brexit-related recession. But Heathrow traffic, for its part, hasn’t shown much sensitivity to previous economic downturns, because demand levels there greatly outstrip the capacity-constrained supply. The sheer size of the London market suggests just how critical it is to so many airlines, and not just those based in the U.K. Name almost any of the top global airlines, and London will rank high on its list of largest overseas markets. In the U.S., it’s a critical battleground in the war between American and Delta, each fighting closely alongside a British partner, in American’s case British Airways and in Delta’s case Virgin Atlantic, of which it owns almost half. With their own metal, American and Delta fly to Heathrow from no fewer than eight U.S. cities each, while United has six Heathrow routes of its own. This summer, according to an Airline Weekly analysis of Diio Mi schedule data, Heathrow alone accounts for 12% of Delta’s total transatlantic seat capacity (Virgin Atlantic operates the majority of capacity in that JV), 23% of…

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