Apology: I messed up the conversion from weekly slots to daily slot pairs. Heathrow data is usually quoted as weekly runway slots (arrivals or departures). But market prices (e.g., the Oman Air deal) refer to a daily slot pair (one arrival + one departure, each day). So you must (1) divide weekly slots by 7 to get daily operations, then (2) divide by 2 to get daily pairs.
The corrected IAG numbers
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Weekly slots at LHR (latest public tallies):
British Airways 4,779, Aer Lingus 288, Iberia 112 → IAG total 5,179 weekly slots. That’s arrivals+departures counted individually.
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Daily operations: 5,179 ÷ 7 ≈ 740 movements/day. (Some sources put that number lower at 712).
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Daily slot pairs: 740 ÷ 2 ≈ 370 daily slot pairs (not 2,590—that’s weekly pairs).
Valuation (what the market actually pays for)
Deals are quoted per daily slot pair.
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Conservative: $5m per daily slot pair → 370 × $5m ≈ $1.85 billion.
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High case (record deals): $75m per daily slot pair → 370 × $75m ≈ $27.75 billion.
Best case: $10 million average per slot pair. → $3.7 Billion.
Benchmarks for context
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IAG market cap (Aug 2025): about $24–25 billion. In other words, the high slot-value case is in the same ballpark as the whole group; the conservative case is materially smaller.
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Heathrow Airport Holdings valuation (recent stake sales): implies roughly $10–12 billion for the airport company.
Who captures the upside?
Heathrow’s parent is majority foreign-owned—notably Saudi Arabia’s PIF and Qatar’s QIA, alongside other overseas investors. Meanwhile Qatar Airways holds 25.1% of IAG. So the scarcity rent embedded in Heathrow access is, in practice, largely monetised offshore.
The BMI reminder
When BA took over BMI, the real prize was Heathrow access, not the airline. In UK long-haul, access beats aircraft—and policy-created scarcity keeps access dear. When BA absorbed BMI, the prize wasn’t the airline — it was the slots. In March 2012, the European Commission (EC) granted regulatory clearance to the acquisition by International Consolidated Airlines Group (IAG) of British Midland Limited (bmi), subject to the Commitments entered into by IAG to release London Heathrow (LHR) slot pairs on selected short-haul and long-haul city pairs.
Policy choice, not fate
If Britain wants a bigger share of the slot windfall, it has options: tax or auction secondary trades, time-limit and re-price usage rights, or channel slot-trade royalties into national infrastructure. The current setup lets scarcity rents pool with incumbents and foreign sovereign owners; that’s a political choice, not an inevitability.
Sources
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IBA – What is an airport slot and how much are they worth? (Aug 2025)
https://www.iba.aero/resources/articles/what-is-an-airport-slot-and-how-much-are-they-worth/
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Simple Flying – These Airlines Hold The Most Slots At London Heathrow Airport (July 2024)
https://simpleflying.com/london-heathrow-airlines-most-slots-guide/
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FT Markets – International Consolidated Airlines Group S.A. (IAG:LSE)
https://markets.ft.com/data/equities/tearsheet/summary?s=IAG:LSE
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Aviation A2Z – London Heathrow Airport: $75m slots deal (29 Aug 2025)
https://aviationa2z.com/index.php/2025/08/29/london-heathrow-airport-75m-slots-deal/
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Reuters – Ardian, Saudis’ PIF buy 37.6% stake in Heathrow (14 June 2024)
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Fortune – Saudi Arabia, Western asset managers become majority owner of Heathrow (11 Dec 2023)
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Wikipedia – Heathrow Airport Holdings (ownership & valuation references)
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BBC – British Airways wins BMI takeover battle (2011)
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