Passenger's View While Arriving at Heathrow Amazes Internet: 'Scenic'

One airline passenger caught a mesmerizing view above Windsor Castle as his flight descended towards London's Heathrow airport, leaving TikTok users amazed by the view along the flight path.

The video was posted by @chaiandmiles, which is run by Sam West, on March 15 after catching a flight from Berlin Brandenburg to London Heathrow. West said it was a "strangely luxury experience" to catch "how scenic the whole area was."

With Windsor Castle directly under the London Heathrow flight path, there are hundreds of flights passing overhead every day. In 2021, Heathrow had 536 flights coming and going every day, helping 19.4 million passengers to reach their destination over the year.

Domestic and international travel was even more sought after before the COVID-19 pandemic, as Heathrow helped more than 80 million passengers in 2019, its busiest year on record.

Since it was posted, TikTok users couldn't believe that, not only was the passenger able to get such a beautiful view on his descent, but that such a picturesque town even exists. The clip has already generated over 1.3 million views and 80,000 likes at the time of writing.

The town of Windsor is located just outside of London, famous for Windsor Castle, one of the best-known royal residences. Queen Elizabeth II often used Windsor Castle as her private home before her death in September 2022. Prince Harry and Meghan Markle took the town by storm when they got married at St. George's Chapel within the castle in May 2018.

West had just woken from a nap when he managed to capture the view down below just in time, which he told Newsweek was a "lovely sight to wake to."

"As beautiful as the castle was, the reason I actually started recording was because of the beautiful countryside and how sunny it was. I have been to Windsor before, but it was amazing to see it all from the sky.

"I was equally impressed by how gorgeous the town and the old colleges were, and the castle gardens."

While West was filming his TikTok video, he said that many of his fellow passengers were also keen to get a glimpse of the famous royal town, leading to "lots of noses on windows."

Although the Newcastle-upon-Tyne resident appreciated how impressive the view was at the time, West admitted that he definitely hadn't expected it to gain so much attention online.

"I was honestly shocked by the way the video blew up," West told Newsweek. "It's already over a million views, and when I shared it I really didn't expect more than a few thousand.

"One thing I found funny was people trying to explain to me what Windsor was. I think a lot of people misunderstood the sarcasm in my caption, and they assumed I was a tourist.

"There was a similar video going round about how depressing it is to land in the U.K. after a holiday, so a lot of people drew parallels between the two and they were glad that my video offered a different perspective."

As Windsor Castle stands tall in the video, there were plenty of TikTok users who compared its magnificence to the 2001 film, The Princess Diaries. At the end of the film, Princess Mia looks out the window at her new kingdom of Genovia, in a sight not too dissimilar to that of Windsor.

One of the comments making that reference reads: "Princess, look out the window, and welcome to Genovia."

Another person wrote: "Windsor is actually so nice, and if you come in the other way the views of central London are insane."

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