RAF Northolt The West London Gateway For Private Aviation

Arriving at Northolt is not like arriving at one of London's scheduled airports. There is no airline terminal to cross and no concourse to navigate. It is a working RAF station on the western edge of the capital that also accommodates civilian business aviation, and that shapes the whole character of the arrival.

For the passenger, the practical question is a simple one: what happens once the aircraft is on the ground. The answer usually involves a short, controlled movement and then a road journey into London, to a residence, to a meeting or out towards the country.

That road journey is our part of it. Chauffeurs World arranges the vehicle and the chauffeur around the details you or your operator confirm, so that the transition from aircraft to car is quiet and unhurried rather than something to organise on arrival.

Today Northolt is used by both military and civilian aircraft, and is home to RAF units including No. 32 (The Royal) Squadron. Business aviation forms a significant part of the civilian movements, which take place under conditions the station sets.

Those conditions matter to anyone planning a journey. Civil flying at Northolt is limited in volume and in the kinds of aircraft that may use it, and every civil movement is arranged in advance through the operator. It is not an airport a passenger simply turns up at.

What that produces is a small-scale aviation environment close to west London, which can suit a business itinerary that begins or ends in the capital. The advantage is proximity and scale rather than the facilities of a large private terminal, and we would rather describe it that way than promise something the station has not published.

Access to an active RAF station is controlled, and it is controlled by the station rather than by us. We make no claim to influence it, and we do not describe procedures the RAF has not published.

What we can do is prepare properly. Collection arrangements are agreed in advance and coordinated around the arrival details supplied by the passenger or the aircraft operator, and your chauffeur meets you at the agreed collection point, subject to the station's own access arrangements on the day.

For a passenger, that is the useful part. The arrangements are settled before you land, so the ground journey is already understood by the time you are ready to leave.

A business day in London rarely stops at one address. An executive may arrive for a morning meeting, move across the city at lunchtime, return to a hotel and go out again in the evening.

Arranged as one chauffeur service rather than as separate bookings, those movements become considerably easier to manage. The same chauffeur knows the shape of the day, the luggage stays in the car and nobody is arranging transport between appointments.

This suits visiting executives, teams travelling together and anyone whose schedule has to hold. Tell us what the day involves and we will arrange the vehicle and the chauffeur around it.

For many arrivals the first stop is a hotel or a private residence. Northolt's position suits both central London and the western side of the city, and a chauffeur journey can continue to either without a change of arrangement.

Where a stay involves more than the arrival itself, the same service can carry through it: collections from the hotel, an evening engagement, a return to the station for the flight home. For a household or a principal's office, a single point of contact for the ground travel tends to be simpler than several.

Our approach to these journeys is quiet and practical. The vehicle is presented properly, the chauffeur knows where you are going, and nothing about the arrangement draws attention to itself.

Private clients arriving at Northolt tend to value the same things the station itself offers: a smaller scale, and an arrival that is not conducted in public.

A journey may run to a London residence, a hotel, a family house in the country or an appointment that nobody needs to know about. Families travelling together may need space for luggage or a child seat fitted before the car arrives. Principals' offices often arrange the whole itinerary on someone else's behalf.

In each case discretion is simply part of doing the job properly: a chauffeur who is prepared, a car that is ready, and a journey that is handled without commentary.

A good airport journey is mostly decided before it starts. Where the passenger is going, how many are travelling, what luggage there is, whether the car is needed later in the day: none of it is complicated, but all of it is easier settled in advance.

When you make the arrangements, we use the details you or your operator provide to prepare the collection: the vehicle chosen for the journey, the chauffeur briefed on the destination and the route considered before the day.

It is a deliberately unremarkable process. The intention is that the ground journey asks nothing of you once you have landed.

Northolt is not only a way into London. Its position on the western side of the city makes it a practical starting point for journeys that leave the capital altogether.

A passenger may continue into Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Oxfordshire, Hertfordshire or Surrey, towards a country house, a business location, a school or an event. Others travel further still, to another city or across several days of appointments.

These journeys are planned as journeys rather than transfers. Where an itinerary runs over more than one day or more than one destination, it is worth discussing the whole of it, so the ground travel is arranged as one plan.