A video recorded by an American passenger at London Heathrow Airport claims he couldn’t find a single British employee working there, that “every worker is Indian” and asking, “Where are the British people?”
Let’s leave aside that the Indian-origin workers are very much British. “Not a single worker” from check-in desks to security appeared to be British. And it’s become a flashpoint in Britain and in Indian media from The Times of India to NDTV and The Hindustan Times.
The American video taps into political themes of immigration, what it means to be British, and displacement of nativs – while equating Britishness with whiteness. And it plays broadly, because many countries have had increasing flashpoints over immigration, who holds “local” jobs, and what role immigrants play in key industries.
Heathrow employs more than 76,000 people, with around 17% foreign-born. (Many South Asians working there are U.K.-born.) Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi origin immigrants are among the largest ethnic minority groups in Britain. In London, and especially in boroughs around Heathrow such as Hounslow and Ealing, the Indian-origin population is especially concentrated. And this is important in explaining how jobs get filled.
- Migration flows: The UK has long-standing ties to South Asia through colonial and post-colonial migration. Since the 1950s and 60s, large Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi communities settled in London.
- Airport geography: Heathrow is in Hounslow/Ealing/Hillingdon, which are heavily South Asian residential areas. Employers tend to recruit locally, where the most willing applicants are – they have lower commuting costs, so the value of the wage is relatively greater. The airport workforce is influenced by demographics of the local community, rather than the broader city or country.
- Job characteristics: Ground handling, retail, and service jobs are low-barrier entry points for recent migrants and second-generation workers, especially when credentials from abroad don’t transfer easily into professional jobs.
This is hardly a phenomenon unique to London Heathrow. I’m much more familiar with the dynamics of Washington’s Dulles and National airports, where employment is dominant by East African (especially Ethiopian) workers.
The D.C. metro are has one of the largest Ethiopian and Eritrean diasporas in the world, plus growing Somali and Sudanese communities. There are 75,000 to 250,000 Ethiopians in the D.C. region. Many came through the U.S. refugee resettlement system (1980s onward for Ethiopians with later waves for Somalis and Sudanese). Northern Virginia suburbs like Alexandria, Arlington, Springfield, and Fairfax have high concentrations of East Africans.
It isn’t that airports actively “choose” one nationality, but that:
- Migration history creates the available workforce nearby.
- Employers hire heavily through community networks, so once a critical mass of one group is in place, it perpetuates.
- People work where their communities live, and airports are big stable employers.
At Heathrow, there’s a centralized brokerage (the Heathrow Employment and Skills Academy) that funnels nearby residents into airport jobs and apprenticeships. It concentrates hiring in the boroughs immediately around the airportwhich have very large South Asian populations (Hounslow alone is 36.7% Asian, with Indians 21% of residents).
Washington’s Airports Authority awards big chunks of work to concessions contractors under required Airport Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program regimes, which staff via community networks. About 60% – 75% of retail and food workers at National and Dulles have been reported to be Ethiopian. (I’m actually surprised required minority quota systems in airport contracts haven’t been targeted by the Trump administration, to be honest.)
And remember that many skilled immigrants are pushed into entry-level hourly roles where domestic licensing isn’t required. These are precisely the roles you find in abundance at airports.
There is a difference between holding citizenship of a country and being an ethnic member that country was founded on. Indians are not British. Whites are not Japanese if they have Japanese citizenship or were born in Japan. Japanese refers to the ethnic group for which it is named. British People are White Anglo Saxon/Jutes and throw in Scots, Welsh, and Celtic people.
Walk around London.. it looks like Halloween with all of the Darth Vader costumes you see. Tomorrow is the 9-11 Anniversary. Never ever forget who did this. Religion of Peace my azz.
What sort of psycho cares about the nationality of another country’s airport workers??
I worked at a UK bank and many of my colleagues, both in New York and the United Kingdom, were of South Asian origin.
Just another insensitive and ignorant post by an Ugly American.
this guy, like almost all Americans, doesn’t understand the difference between Britishness(a nationality), and Englishness(an ethnicity.)
We are talking about the indigenous people of Britain not merely “white.” If something similar happens to the indigenous people of any other land, it would be an uproar.
At some point people will wake up.
Cheap mass immigration to countries works, until it doesn’t…
Objectively, no, not every worker at Heathrow is Indian; yet, subjectively, some ‘feel’ like there are more than they would have expected for that place. Now of that really matters.
We’re all humans. It’s a decent airport that functions properly. DOH and DXB airports have a lot of South Asian workers, too; it never phased me. NYC’s airports are a ‘melting pot’ as well. We coexist just fine.
@Coffee Please — If we need to go down the list of violent extremists within every group, we can, but it doesn’t help. The bad acts of a few do not represent the group.
Just one more example, the Troubles, 30 years of sectarian violence between Catholics and Protestants, lest we forget. About 3,500 deaths. Mostly whites fighting other whites.
Unless we’re truly edging for a race war on here, there’s nothing good that comes from any of this ‘talk.’ And practically no civil wars end well for anyone. Just suffering for everyone.
Typo: *None (not ‘Now’)
I’m surprised our resident bigot @Walter Barry hasn’t weighed in yet; sir, how are Indians working at LHR “poisoning the blood of our country” (quoting #47 echoing some historical figure at a rally in 2023).
@Don — Bit more nuance with the British Empire and its history in India, but whatever, ignore all that… FILTHY ‘immigrants bad…’ *facepalm*
Oh, Pleazzzzzze
I’d rather have dinner with pleasant & interesting Indian folks ANYDAY over hanging out with the British Royal family especially when the Queen & Diana are now gone. Number one the food will be a lot better. White trash is white trash no matter the accent.
Come to think of it I’m going to order Indian food now from Grubhub!
And people wonder why the USA has a reputation for being racist…
@Christian — It’s a human problem, though, yes, we Americans have a particular history of doing this, to whichever ‘out’ groups we seem to target at any given time, and, yet again, we appear to be repeating the worst aspects, today.
When our Supreme Court basically revives Korematsu and says, sure, the government can ethnically profile, and, yeah, why not, if they speak Spanish, then they must be ‘illegal.’
This stuff doesn’t end well for anyone. To hate others like this might make some feel better about themselves for a moment, but it just harms them, too.
@Christian
There were large anti-immigrant protests in the UK a couple of weeks ago. Germany shipping immigrants back to the Middle East. The Greek Parliament just said no to more refugees. France has had enough. So has Sweden, Germany, The Netherlands, Ireland, etc. Ask yourself why doesn’t the wealthy Middle East countries take the Syrian’s, Palestinian’s, etc. Here come the intolerant lefties. God Bless Charlie Kirk!