
The British-Indian billionaire founded the Arora hotel group
Loading summary
BBC Announcer
This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.
Margaret
Hey Ryan, that was a fast trip. It was like you teleported.
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah, just got in. I'll get all my expenses logged, I promise.
Margaret
Oh no, you're okay. SAP Concur uses advanced AI so your expense report will practically write itself. Quite the breakthrough. It's like we've been teleported into the future. All right, so just curious, would you give us written permission to convert your matter into energy patterns and reassemble you at say, random travel destinations?
Ryan Reynolds
Margaret, are you building a teleporter?
Margaret
No. Yes.
Surinda Aurora
SAP Concur helps your business move forward faster.
BritBox Advertiser
Learn more@concur.com Vanity Fair calls BritBox a delicious streamer. Collider says everyone should be watching. Catch Britain's next best series with Britbox Stream acclaim new originals like Code of Silence.
Margaret
You read lips right?
BritBox Advertiser
And Linley, based on the best selling mystery series Take it from here and don't miss the new season of Karen Piri coming this October.
Surinda Aurora
You don't look like.
Margaret
Please, I'll take that as a compliment.
BritBox Advertiser
See it differently when you stream the best of British TV with BritBox. Watch with a free trial today.
Will Bain
Hello and welcome to Business Daily on the BBC World Service. I'm Will Bain. Today, have you ever sat in work and thought to yourself I could run this place? Well, our guest today didn't just dream it, he made it a reality.
Surinda Aurora
That's where I used to do my wine rating back in late 70s and early 80s and then we were blessed. About eight, nine years ago we acquired that hotel.
Will Bain
We're meeting hotelier and self made billionaire Surinda Aurora, the largest landowner at London's Heathrow Airport. And he tells us about his journey and how he's hoping to shape the airport's future too with his own proposal for its challenging expansion plans.
Surinda Aurora
Saying whoa, Aurora. What does he know other than hotels and customer service? Well, I like to think at the end of the day, whether I'm building one day an office block or I'm building a hotel that we've got a track record that we build everything on time, on budget or ahead of budget.
Will Bain
So that's Business Daily meets Sarinda Arora. What a view, Sarinda.
Surinda Aurora
Yeah, it's amazing views. I always love coming here and watching the planes taking off and landing coming in over London. And as we can see to our left, they're taking off on the southern Runway. As we see that BA777 racing down.
Will Bain
For takeoff, it's something of a plane spotters paradise. Your bar up here on the hotel.
Surinda Aurora
It is and we're very blessed. A lot of people come here just literally to come to the bar. It's the second tallest building inside the airport after the control tower. So you've got the most amazing views.
Will Bain
High up on the 14th floor of the Hilton Garden Inn Hotel. Slap bang at the center of one of the world's busiest airports, London's Heathrow Airport. This is one of hotelier Surinda Aurora's 20 hotels as well as other retail and property interests. That's more than seven and a half thousand hotel rooms, 280 meeting rooms and 60 bars and restaurants. He owns under both the Aurora Group's name and but also under franchises for some of the world's best known hotel brands. This is the welcome you've been waiting for, the personal touch you deserve. This is Crowne Plaza.
Margaret
When you need to hustle without hassle, it matters where you stay. Hilton for the stay.
BBC Announcer
Wonderful hospitality always.
Will Bain
Marriott Hotels. His success has made Mr. Aurora a billionaire and one of the UK's richest business leaders. But his story has many extraordinary elements including his arrival in the uk.
Surinda Aurora
I was obviously born in India. My parents already had three children. I was kind of born as a mistake after a 10 year gap and my mum's sister didn't have any children so they adopted me when I was just a few days old. So I always assumed that they were my parents until in 1971 when my real mum went back to India and realized that Srinda was turning into a complete nutcase, completely lost and a gangster. Gangster meaning, you know, strong word but you know, I used to gamble. I'd smoke, I'd carry a knife.
Will Bain
How old are you at this time?
Surinda Aurora
11 and a half, 12. So my real mum, who I used to call auntie, was very strict so she managed to convince my parents in India and saying, you spoiled Surinder. Send him to London, I'll knock him into shape. So that's when I landed on 15.4.72 here at Heathrow where we're sitting now. The first thing I said to them, hello Auntie, hello uncle, was and a few days later they sat me around dinner table and said, look, we need to tell you something. We are your natural parents. It was a big shock. And then I said, well be lucky Surinda, I've got two mums and two dads. I'll always look at life and thinking instead of negative, just try to turn everything you can into positive.
Will Bain
And the 70s in the UK, as someone with an Indian background that is a tumultuous time. So how did you find those kind of early years, I suppose, finding your footing in a new country?
Surinda Aurora
Well, it was, it was strange, it was different. They bought this three bedroom terrace house in Southall where a lot of the Asian families living. When we went through the front door I thought there was just the four of us, my cousin, brother, my mom and dad. But actually they had another family lodging with them, another family of four. So I was now living in a three bedroom terrace house with eight of us in there. And then my late mom, she used to go to work very early while we were all sleeping, sort of leaving before 6am she'll come home about 4 o' clock from her factory. She was working at Lyons Tetley, the tea factory in Greenford. She'll then cook for us and then she's gone again in the evening and one day I said, mom, where do you go? And she took me with her and said, I've got a cleaning job in the evening so I clean a local Lloyds Bank. And I felt so sorry for her and I said, mum, tomorrow I'm going to come with you and we'll clean together so you can finish an hour early. So life was tough in a sense that mum and dad both worked in factories. But that's what I say, Will, about this country, that we all have to have dreams before you can turn them into reality.
Will Bain
From there, Mr. Arora made the short trip to find work at the UK's biggest airport, which had been opened in 1955 by Queen Elizabeth II as London Airport. But by the time Sarinda Aror arrived In the late 1970s, it had changed its name to Heathrow over now to.
Surinda Aurora
The new London Airport, one of the.
BBC Announcer
Busiest crossroads of the air in the world.
Surinda Aurora
Below us, the lofty control tower commands attention. Rising from the heart of the imposing.
Margaret
New terminal buildings, the Queen has formally opened the new 2 1/2 billion pound Terminal 2 building at Heathrow Airport. The terminal known as the Queen's Terminal rather aptly replaces the very first passenger building which was opened by her majesty.
Will Bain
In 1955 and he started working there for British Airways.
Surinda Aurora
Those days there was no technologies, everything was done paperwork. So I was literally delivering paperwork around different offices in cargo. So they said Junior Clark, it was actually document runner. So that's what was running from one office to another and delivering and collecting documents. So that's really where journey began.
Will Bain
You heard Queen Elizabeth II returning to Heathrow in 2014 to open the terminal named after her at The Airport, Terminal 2 the Queen's Terminal and it's on the roof terrace of his hotel bar at Terminal 2. Surrounded by planes taking off and landing on the runways around us. The Surinder Aurora told me more about how he went from a self described runner to a billionaire hotelier and the largest landowner here at Heathrow.
Surinda Aurora
So you've got the most amazing views of Heathrow looking behind us all the way to Canary Wharf, Wembley Stadium.
Will Bain
I can see the Shard there in central London.
Surinda Aurora
Exactly. And you can see Surrey Downs down south. Just literally got the most amazing views.
Will Bain
It's also got great views of your history, I suppose, here with the airport.
Surinda Aurora
Sure. Well, if we look on the southern side, just behind us, we've got the cargo area for the airport and that's where I started working for British airways back in 77. So I used to do 9 to 5, 13 BA and then drive over. Just there you can see the Renaissance Hotel that used to be the old Penta Hotel.
Will Bain
So that's a beautiful big sort of white cream building and it's stretching right along that Runway there, isn't it? If you've got one of those rooms on the front, you can watch the planes go to your heart's content.
Surinda Aurora
We get so many guests who actually repeat guests who come in and they literally just book the bedroom for the Runway view. That's where I used to do my wine waiting back in late 70s and early 80s. And then we were blessed about eight, nine years ago we acquired that hotel.
Will Bain
And just across the other side, another bit of your history too. Your first hotel here at Heathrow, right behind the purple building that's now the offices where the chief executive of the airport worked. When did you buy that?
Surinda Aurora
So that's really where the journey began. Will that. We acquired the four little houses, three bedroom terrace houses and then we acquired the other adjoining properties and the office building behind, we built that first hotel dedicated for British Airways cruise because before it became the headquarters of Heathrow Airport, that blue building used to be the headquarters of British Airways cruise. So the crew used to stay there, they used to be bused around to different hotels around the airport. I then came up with this crazy idea when I approached BA and I suggested that we can actually build them a crew hotel right opposite their hq so they don't have to get on coaches, they can cross the road, actually use a hotel.
Will Bain
So. Right, so that was the first pitch. It was for the airline's use actually, rather than for passengers use.
Surinda Aurora
Yeah. I recall going to British Airways and said, I have this idea. And I think British Airways really didn't have much confidence and neither did my wife. And they would say, well, what the hell do you know about hotels and construction? And it took me nearly 20 months to convince them because the CEO at that time at British Airways was saying, surinder, if you get it wrong, my crew won't rest. And if they don't rest, they won't fly and I'll end up canceling all my flights. And that's a huge risk. We won't do it said to them and convince them that Serinda's not going to build these hotels. All I am going to do is bring the best teams on board. So that really gave them the comfort and the rest was history.
Will Bain
And what does your wife think now?
Surinda Aurora
Oh, my wife is, you know, she's got a bit more confidence now.
Will Bain
And as we stand here now, how do you kind of reflect on that journey? Could you even believe it, really, now that you look out at it?
Surinda Aurora
Yeah, look, I've always said that I love this country, that if some people like myself can come in with nothing, riding a bicycle and then have no education and then still be able to fulfill my dreams, you know, life's been kind and the journey's been great. Here.
Will Bain
This is Business Daily on the BBC World Service.
Oracle Cloud Advertiser
In business, they say you can have better, cheaper or faster. But you only get to pick two. What if you could have all three at the same time? That's exactly what Cohere, Thomson Reuters and Specialized Bikes have since they upgraded to the next generation of the cloud. Oracle Cloud Infrastructure OCI is the blazing fast platform for your infrastructure, database, application development and AI needs where you can run any workload in a high availability, consistently high performance environment and spend less than you would with other clouds. How is it faster? OCI's block storage gives you more operations per second cheaper. OCI costs up to 50% less for computing, 70% less for storage and and 80% less for networking better. In test after test, OCI customers report lower latency and higher bandwidth versus other clouds. This is the cloud built for AI and all your biggest workloads right now with zero commitment. Try OCI for free. Head to oracle.com strategic. That's oracle.com strategic.
Ryan Reynolds
Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited Premium Wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills, but it turns out that's very illegal. So there Goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment.
Margaret
Of $45 for a three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow after 35 gigabytes of network's busy taxes and fees extra. See mintmobile.com.
Will Bain
I'm Will Bain and today I'm speaking to Syrinda Aurora, the self made billionaire hotelier and founder of the Aurora Group. Well, as more and more of us have wanted to jet off on holiday or to see family around the world, the demand for flights has exploded and that's put pressure on the world's airports to keep up. But when those pressures meet, the competing concerns many have about the environment and the damage air travel can do, well, it makes for an almighty row in London. That row over whether to expand Heathrow Airport to increase capacity has been raging for decades. However, it may finally be coming into land.
BBC Announcer
Being in a major speech promising economic growth across the uk, the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves says the government is backing the construction of a third Runway at Heathrow. It comes two decades after the airport's owners first asked for permission for more capacity. And now the government says a new Runway will help make Britain the world's best connected place to do business.
Margaret
I come to the decision that perhaps more than any other has been delayed, has been avoided, has been ducked. So I can confirm today that this government supports a third Runway at Heathrow.
Will Bain
Britain's Finance minister, Rachel Reeves there making the economic case for airport expansion. It's not something universally welcomed though. Protesters chanting no third Runway at Heathrow after that announcement. And even the Mayor of London, who is in the same political party as the Finance Minister, vehemently disagreed. Sadiq Khan warning airport expansion was incompatible with meeting the UK's climate targets.
Surinda Aurora
I won't hesitate in working on a cross party basis, working with communities, working with councils to challenge Heathrow airport.
Will Bain
So a potential fight in the courts. And even with the UK government giving the green light for expansion at Heathrow in principle, the arguments about how it's delivered, how much it might cost are already raging too.
BBC Announcer
Heathrow's plans to add a third Runway here will now face competition from a company who claims the their vision is simpler, less disruptive and will therefore be much cheaper to build. This is that rival vision from Aurora Group. It says it can build a third Runway and open a new terminal by 2035 for 25 billion pounds.
Will Bain
It's something Surinda Aurora is now involved in. Worried about the airport's own plans to expand and build a third Runway that would involve building over Britain's busiest motorway, the M25 that encircles London. He's brought together a team to make an alternative pitch. So why does he think airport expansion matters for a country's economy?
Surinda Aurora
When I came up with this journey about building the new Runway or the terminal at Heathrow, my dear friends at Heathrow Airport, Hal, are saying, whoa, Aurora, what does he know other than hotels and customer service? Well, I like to think at the end of the day, whether I'm building one day an office block or on building a multi story car park or on building a hotel or whatever, I like to think that we've got a track record, if you look at the last 25 years, that we built everything on time, on budget or ahead of.
Will Bain
Budget, how important is it for this airport to expand for you and for, I guess, for the UK's economy? Because again, for lots of our listeners not in the uk, there'll be similar debates, I'm sure, where they're listening as well, about big airports and expanding. Why do you think it matters? Why is it important?
Surinda Aurora
I think it's important for the nation because if we don't do it, if we don't expand, if we don't increase number of passengers or flight, or if we don't become efficient, then we'll be left behind. If you look at Dubai building a new airport with a capacity of over 250 million passengers, if you look at India in the last decade they've built more than 70 airports. 7, 0. If you look at China, if you look at Charles de Gaulle, Paris, if you look at Frankfurt, if you look at Dublin airport, they built a second Runway. We have been talking about Runway and by the way, Heathrow, in the olden days there was more than two runways, we had the cross Runway. And I think the best thing, not just from my experience but from a nation perspective, the current government have come in and said we want to grow and expand and do it as quickly as we can, which I think is something great. The only thing we must make sure we do not grow and expand at any cost of lining up the shareholders pockets. Currently, now Heathrow Airport is saying we're going to spend 48, 49 billion. Well firstly, if you look at their track record, if they're saying, oh, we're going to come in and build the new Runway over the M25 which is Europe's busiest junction and trust us, forgive me, let the viewers make their own.
Will Bain
Judgment, but you Believe it's possible. It can be done and it can be done efficiently. It can be done for the benefit of everybody.
Surinda Aurora
We have been saying the same thing for the last eight years. It is absolutely a non runner. If you're going to talk about building a Runway over the M25 that just in my humble view, it'll never get built. That's my view.
Will Bain
Well, just last month, Heathrow Airport told the BBC their plans for an extra Runway and other upgrades at the airport would cost around 49 billion pounds. That's more than $65 billion. Mr. Arora's plans set a cost at around half that, at $33 billion, but do include fewer upgrades. Heathrow have also said they're open to Mr. Arora's suggestion of having that shorter Runway. The UK government's transport minister, Heidi Alexander, in the last few weeks has said the two proposals were a significant step towards unlocking growth, creating jobs and delivering vital national infrastructure, and said the government will consider the proposals carefully over the summer so that they can begin a review later this year. Those, then are the future challenges for Serinda Arora. But as you can hear, he still clearly has a passion to try and take those on. He's not, he insists with a laugh, planning to retire to any of his golf courses anytime soon. But as we step back out onto the roof terrace of his hotel and look across the Runway to the tiny window of his first clerk's office, I ask him what his message would be to someone working in an office just like that today.
Surinda Aurora
You know, life is always ups and downs, but don't ever let feel, gosh, it's the end of the life, it's the end of the world. When I nearly lost my business in the 200809 crisis, that's the only time in life. I woke up at 12 o' clock in the morning crying. I cried so much that you could squeeze water out of the pillow. My wife's sleeping next to me and I'm saying, honey, what have I done to you, my kids? I'm going to lose the business, I'm going to lose our house. We'll lose everything. And yet the following morning I woke up and I said, surinda, you're not going to be a chicken and walk away, run away from a problem. We're going to tackle this head on. And I haven't got just my five family members. I've got 1800 family members. They've got rent to pay, bills to pay, mortgages to pay. Why am I going to let them down. So I'm going to work hard. And we worked hard. And now today I'm standing here after those financial crises and we don't have 1800 team members. We've got over 3000 team members. So that's really what makes me jump out of bed.
Will Bain
Surindra Aurora, thanks so much for having us at your hotel today.
Surinda Aurora
Thank you.
Will Bain
That's all from my guest today, self made hotelier and billionaire businessman Surinda Arora. Many thanks to him for his time and hospitality and for you for listening. This program was produced and presented by me, Will Bain. And to hear more of our programs, let's make sure you don't miss an episode. Remember to subscribe to the Business Daily Podcast Us wherever you get yours from.
Grainger Advertiser
This is the story of the One As a maintenance supervisor at a manufacturing facility, he knows keeping the line up and running is a top priority. That's why he chooses Grainger, because when a drive belt gets damaged, Grainger makes it easy to find the exact specs for the replacement product he needs. And next day delivery helps ensure he'll have everything in place and running like clockwork. Call 1-800-granger. Click granger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done.
BBC World Service | Host: Will Bain | Date: September 4, 2025
This episode of Business Daily focuses on Surinder Arora, a self-made billionaire, leading hotelier, and the largest landowner at London’s Heathrow Airport. Host Will Bain joins Arora at one of his flagship hotels overlooking the runways to discuss Arora’s personal journey from humble beginnings, his rise in the UK hospitality industry, and his ambitious new proposal for a cost-effective expansion of Heathrow Airport. The conversation explores themes of immigration, entrepreneurship, resilience in business, and the ongoing debate about airport expansion in the context of environmental and economic concerns.
Surinder’s Childhood in India:
"We need to tell you something. We are your natural parents. It was a big shock. And then I said, well be lucky Surinder, I've got two mums and two dads. I'll always look at life and thinking instead of negative, just try to turn everything you can into positive." – Surinder Arora (04:37)
Life in London in the 1970s:
Turning Hardship into Opportunity:
Early Jobs at Heathrow Airport:
First Hotel Acquisition:
"It took me nearly 20 months to convince them because the CEO...was saying, Surinder, if you get it wrong, my crew won't rest...I'll end up canceling all my flights. And that's a huge risk." – Surinder Arora (09:31)
Business Growth:
Pride in the Journey:
"If some people like myself can come in with nothing, riding a bicycle and then have no education and then still be able to fulfill my dreams, you know, life's been kind and the journey's been great." – Surinder Arora (10:24)
National and Economic Context:
Aurora Group’s Alternative Proposal:
"At the end of the day... we've got a track record, if you look at the last 25 years, that we built everything on time, on budget or ahead of." – Surinder Arora (01:45, 15:19)
The Global Stakes:
"That's the only time in life. I woke up at 12 o'clock in the morning crying...And yet the following morning I woke up and I said, Surinder, you're not going to be a chicken and walk away...We're going to tackle this head on." – Surinder Arora (18:50)
On Transformation and Optimism:
“I've got two mums and two dads. I'll always look at life and thinking instead of negative, just try to turn everything you can into positive.” – Surinder Arora (04:37)
On the Meaning of Hard Work:
“Life was tough in a sense that mum and dad both worked in factories. But that's what I say, Will, about this country, that we all have to have dreams before you can turn them into reality.” – Surinder Arora (06:07)
On Convincing Skeptics:
“It took me nearly 20 months to convince them...I suggested that we can actually build them a crew hotel right opposite their hq so they don't have to get on coaches...That really gave them the comfort and the rest was history.” – Surinder Arora (09:26–10:12)
On the UK and Opportunity:
“If some people like myself can come in with nothing, riding a bicycle and then have no education and then still be able to fulfill my dreams, you know, life's been kind and the journey's been great.” – Surinder Arora (10:24)
Advice for Today’s Workers:
“You know, life is always ups and downs, but don't ever let feel, gosh, it's the end of the life, it's the end of the world...Work hard. And we worked hard. And now today I'm standing here after those financial crises...So that's really what makes me jump out of bed.” – Surinder Arora (18:50–19:50)
The episode offers an inspiring portrait of Surinder Arora’s resilience, from adversity as a young immigrant to chairman of a vast hotel enterprise. Arora’s belief in hard work, positive thinking, and caring for others—whether family or employees—anchors his story. He emerges as a formidable, practical alternative voice in the heated Heathrow expansion debate, championing not just cost-consciousness but the nation’s competitive future. A compelling lesson in optimism, ambition, and the enduring rewards of perseverance.