A viral clip from Heathrow from an American traveler claims that “every worker is Indian” and asks where the “British” workers are. Since the traveler appears serious, we are going to have to break the news to him that British and white are not synonymous and that his video sparked outrage for very good reason.

Who Works At Heathrow, Really?

Here’s the clip, in which an American traveler at London Heathrow Airport is amazed to find “no British employees.”

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Heathrow is the UK’s largest single-site employer, with tens of thousands o people working on the airport campus and many more through contractors and the local supply chain. That scale draws heavily from the neighborhoods around the airport, which in West London include large British Indian and wider South Asian communities (Pakistani and Bangladeshi too). When your hiring pool looks like that, your front-line staff will reflect it.

London is one of the most diverse regions in the UK. British nationality is civic, not ethnic. Many staff who appear “Indian” are British citizens, often second or third generation, and English is their first language (India was the “crown jewel” of the British Empire until 1947). About 17% of Heathrow workers are foreign-born. Heathrow’s visible roles, like security, retail, cleaning, and ground handling, are the jobs travelers interact with most, which can create the impression that every worker is from one background even when the overall workforce is more ethnically mixed, but that says nothing about their Britishness.

The video is all the more curious considering the author is an immigrant himself (to the USA).

Why You May See More Indians At Heathrow

A few factors shape what travelers notice in terminals:

• Local labor market: Heathrow recruits from nearby boroughs such as Hounslow, Hillingdon, and Ealing. These areas have significant British Indian populations, so the candidate pool naturally includes many people of Indian heritage.
• Contracted front-line roles: Security, cleaning, retail, and ground handling are often delivered by partner firms and agencies with local pipelines. These are customer-facing jobs that passengers see most and since they are entry level, they tend to attract immigrant labor as well, which includes workers who migratd from South Asia
• London’s service economy: Employers in the capital draw on both long-standing communities and new arrivals. Some roles may be filled through sponsored work routes, but the majority of staff you meet at Heathrow live locally and are British.

Put simply, seeing many staff of Indian heritage at Heathrow says more about London’s demographics and airport-area hiring than it does about who is or is not “British.”

CONCLUSION

Heathrow’s workforce reflects London. Many staff who look “Indian” are British, of Indian heritage, and recruited from neighboring boroughs. That is not an irregularity to fix…it is exactly what you would expect at a global hub in a diverse city.

I flag this story (with thanks to View From The Wing for bringing it to my attention) because it strikes me as a horrible example of ignorance…and since a fellow countryman is in the middle of it and it involves travel and airports, it strikes me as at least worthy of comment, especially in the current political climate we find ourselves in.