Surinder Arora was born in Punjab and raised by an aunt and uncle he believed were his parents, joining his real family in the UK at 13. In the 70s he waited tables at a hotel near Heathrow Airport, sold life insurance for Abbey Life in the 80s, and in 1993 put the proceeds into a B&B for airline crew.

At the turn of the new millennium, a British Airways contract in 1999 turned it into a business. The business’s strategy since then has been built on one insight: proximity to Heathrow. Arora moved from crew accommodation into four-star airport hotels, then into the land itself, becoming the largest private landowner around the London airport’s perimeter. In 2012 he bought the Renaissance London Heathrow – the hotel where he had once been a waiter. The group now runs 21 hotels including the InterContinental London – The O2 and Fairmont Windsor Park.

The decision to purchase all the land has produced an extraordinary second act in his entrepreneurial career. Arora's Heathrow West scheme, costed at £25bn against the airport's £49bn plan for expansion, was passed over by the government in November 2025. However, in May 2026 the regulator shortlisted an "alternative developer" model, and Arora returned with a revised two-phase runway designed by Bechtel, backed by British Airways and Virgin Atlantic – although delivery was delayed in October 2026 until the late 2030s.

Arora now serves as executive chair, having handed the chief executive role to his son Sanjay as part of a planned move to the next generation. He remains the group's public face, both as a vocal industry voice and as the driving force behind Heathrow West. His journey to owner of the Heathrow hotel he once waited in has made him one of the UK’s best-known self-made hoteliers.