21 retro pictures of Luton Airport to take you back in time as it celebrates its 85th anniversary

As London Luton Airport celebrates its historic anniversary, we look back at its 85-year history and how it has changed over the decades.

It’s strange to think of Luton now without its airport, but it wasn't until 1938 that Luton’s aerodrome opened as a small airfield. The opening, on July 16, was marked with a Royal Air Force show. A year later, the airport stepped up and became a base for Royal Air Force fighters during the Second World War.

Commercial flights and training at Luton started back up in 1952 around the same time the first control tower opened. By the 1960s, the airport had become synonymous with the booming package holiday industry and at the end of the decade, a fifth of all holiday flights from the UK departed from Luton Airport. In 1968, Monarch Airlines begin charter flights from Luton.

During the late 1970s, an expansion plan was started at Luton to cater for as many as five million passengers a year. While in the 1980s, Concorde landed at the growing airport.

To emphasise its proximity to London, the airport was renamed London Luton Airport (LLA ) in 1990. Towards the end of the 1990s, a new control tower and the Luton Airport Parkway station opened and easyJet began its operation. Just before the millennium, a new £40 million terminal was opened by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip.

The airport saw more changes into the 2000s with a new departure opening and work starting on the next phase of redevelopment. In 2019, the airport hit a record 17.9 million passengers and earlier this year, the Luton Airport DART opened and plan for a second terminal were submitted.

LLA is now one of the UK’s busiest airports and currently supports around 27,000 jobs – carrying passengers to more than 140 destinations in around the world.

Scroll through these pictures to see how the airport has changes over the years