Belfast International Airport

Encyclopedia : B : BE : BEL : Belfast International Airport

{| class="infobox bordered" style="width: 220px; font-size: 95%;"

|-

! colspan="4" style="text-align: center; background-color: #4682B4; color: white;" |Belfast International Airport

|-

|align="center" colspan="4"|

|-

|-

|-

Belfast International Airport is an airport located some 24 kilometres (15 miles) west of Belfast in Northern Ireland. It is also known as Aldergrove, after the village of that name lying immediately to the west of the airport; locals sometimes refer to the airport as "Nutt's Corner." Belfast International shares its runways with the Royal Air Force base RAF Aldergrove, which otherwise has its own facilities. Over 4.82 million passengers (2.1% of passengers at all UK airports) travelled through the airport in 2005 (a 1.7 million/54.1% increase over 2000). Belfast International is the 11th busiest airport in the UK in terms of passenger numbers[link] and it is the busiest airport in Northern Ireland. It is also the second busiest airport on the island of Ireland (after Dublin Airport's 18.4mill passengers). Belfast International Airport has transatlantic flights, with scheduled flights to New York, Toronto and Vancouver as well as flights to many major European cities. There are chartered flights to Africa, North America, the Caribbean and many European destinations.

Contents

1 History
2 Airlines and destinations

2.1 Scheduled airlines
2.2 Charter operators
2.3 Cargo operators

3 Key facts
4 Transport Links
5 External links

History

On 26 May 2005 Continental Airlines began direct flights to Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, United States.
On June 20 2006 13.5kg of cocaine was seized in the airport. The seizure, valued at around £3m, was the largest in Irish history. Two German men were arrested on suspicion of trafficing. It is believed they were boarding a flight to Luton Airport and intended to travel onwards to mainland Europe. [link]
On 3 July 2006 Continental airlines announced that it had carried its 100,000th passenger on its Belfast - New York (Newark) route.

Airlines and destinations

Scheduled airlines

The following scheduled airlines use Belfast International Airport (at June 2006):

bmibaby (Birmingham, Cardiff, Manchester, Nottingham)
Continental Airlines (Newark)
easyJet (Alicante, Amsterdam, Berlin-Schönefeld, Bristol, Edinburgh, Faro, Geneva, Glasgow, Inverness, Liverpool, London-Gatwick, London-Luton, London-Stansted, Malaga, Newcastle, Nice, Palma, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Rome-Ciampino)
Jet2.com (Barcelona, Blackpool, Leeds/Bradford, Murcia, Pisa, Prague, Tenerife-South [from Oct. 2006])
Manx2 (Isle of Man)
Thomsonfly (Alicante, Dalaman, Faro, Orlando-Sanford, Gran Canaria, Ibiza, Lanzarote, Malaga, Palma Mallorca, Paphos, Puerto Plata, Reus, Tenerife-South)
Zoom Airlines (Toronto, Vancouver)

see also Belfast International Airport connections.

Charter operators

Destinations in Europe and North America are served from BIA by charter airlines. Operators include:

Some of the destinations served are -

Alicante, Almeria, Antalya, Arrecife, Bergamo, Bodrum, Bourgas, Cancun, Corfu, Crete, Dalaman, Faro, Fuerteventura, Gerona, Ibiza, Innsbruck, Jersey, Kefalonia, Lapland, Larnaca, Las Palmas, Lourdes, Mahon, Malaga, Monastir, Montego Bay, Naples, Orlando (Sanford), Palma de Mallorca, Puerto Plata, Plovdiv, Reus, Rhodes, Salzburg, Sharm el Sheikh, Tenerife, Toronto, Varna, Verona.

Cargo operators

Belfast International Airport is one of the most important regional airfreight centres in the UK, handling up to 50,000 tonnes of air cargo in 2004. Due to Northern Ireland's relative isolation from both mainland UK and Europe, superior airfreight services are vital. BIA plays host to a long-established nightly Royal Mail operation. The major cargo operators are:

Key facts

Passenger Growth: Serving over 4.8 million passengers in 2005, Belfast International Airport is the principal gateway to Northern Ireland. BIA has experienced steady growth over the past few years.

Domestic and European Success: Easyjet began scheduled operations to Geneva, Inverness, Palma (Majorca,), Berlin Schoenefeld and Rome Ciampino in summer 2005, bringing their total number of destinations served from Belfast to 19. With over three million passengers traveling through their Belfast base per year, it has become one of easyJet’s fastest growing bases, and now accounts for 12% of easyJet’s entire network. Jet2 has also recently increased operations at their Belfast base. Their Blackpool service was increased to daily thought out the summer period, (Jet2.com reported "amazing demand" on the route since it was launched). New routes to Pisa and Murcia start in May and July respectively. Jet 2 have also announced a new route to Tenerife which is due to start in October using Boeing 757 aircraft. In May 2006, new airline Manx2 announced twice daily flights to the Isle of Man.

Transatlantic Success: In its first year of operation Continental carried approximately 85,000 passengers on its Belfast-New York route, an estimated 40 per cent of whom have been inbound US passengers visiting Northern Ireland on business or leisure trips. The figure exceeds the 70,000 target set by the airline for the first year of operation. In March the airline, announced an increase in the frequency of the Belfast to New York service from five flights a week to seven due to demand. The daily service operates from March to October and five times a week in winter. Zoom Airlines announced in Feb 2006 that their route to Toronto had been “hugely successful” and that direct scheduled flights would occur all year round. June 2006 also saw the first direct scheduled service from Belfast to Vancouver.
Top Destinations: The most popular domestic destination from Belfast is London followed by Liverpool.

77% of passengers at Belfast fly scheduled flights, with only 23% on charter.
26% of passengers from Belfast International are business flyers. This equates to 1.2 million Business passengers per annum.
The airport operates 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and is not subject to noise abatement procedures, significant environmental constraints or airspace limitations.
It is the closest all-weather airport in Europe to the USA, and is ideally located for the rapid turnaround and repositioning of transatlantic flights.
Two runways, one with Cat 111b ILS equipment, offer all weather capability.
Fifth largest regional air cargo centre in the UK.
Full range of warehouse and distribution centre.
Extensive ancillary services on site including executive air charter, air taxi, air ambulance, helicopter training and hire.

Transport Links

By Road: Travellers by car from Belfast reach the airport by travelling north on the M2 motorway, turning off at junction 5 and then via A57 for 7 miles to the airport. From the north and north west the route is easiest found by coming south on the M2 again to junction 5.

By Bus: Translink operates a frequent bus service (Bus 300) to the airport from their Europa Buscentre, in the centre of Belfast. This is usually considered the most convenient method of transport to the city centre.

The airport can be reached from Derry/Londonderry and the North West by the Airporter. This coach service operates 7 days a week and an hourly service from Monday-Friday.

By Train: The nearest railway station is 6 miles from the airport in Antrim. There are connections to Belfast, Lisburn and Derry/Londonderry. Trains to and from Dublin are via Belfast Central Station, which has its own Airbus stop.

External links

[Belfast International Airport] (Official Site)
[The Airporter]
[Airport Express 300]

Airports of the United Kingdom
: City \| Gatwick \| Heathrow \| Luton \| Stansted \| Southend
: Birmingham \| Blackpool \| Bournemouth \| Bristol \| Doncaster-Sheffield \| Durham Tees Valley \| Exeter \| Leeds-Bradford \| Liverpool \| Manchester \| Newcastle \| Norwich \| Nottingham East Midlands \| Southampton Coventry \| Humberside \| Land's End \| Newquay \| Plymouth City \| St. Mary's
: Aberdeen \| Edinburgh \| Glasgow International \| Glasgow Prestwick \| Inverness Barra \| Benbecula \| Campbeltown \| Dundee \| Fair Isle \| Islay \| Kirkwall \| Lerwick \| Stornoway \| Sumburgh \| Tiree \| Westray \| Wick
: Cardiff
: Belfast City \| Belfast International \| City of Derry
Crown Dependencies: Alderney \| Guernsey \| Isle of Man \| Jersey
[http://encycl.opentopia.com/ edit this box]

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.