asked Her Majesty's Government:Whether, in view of the fact that Stansted now handles more than 9 million passengers a year, and those numbers are rising, they will consider designating a less busy airport for hijacked airliners. [HL1008]

All UK airports must be capable of handling hijacked aircraft, but a particular advantage of Stansted is that it can continue to operate during an incident without a great deal of disruption after the initial phase. Policy on handling of hijacks is reviewed as a matter of course after an incident.