George Best Belfast City Airport

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George Best Belfast City Airport is an airport in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The airport is a single runway operation, situated only 3.2 kilometres (2 miles) from Belfast City Centre. It shares the site with the Short Brothers/Bombardier aircraft manufacturing facility. It began commercial operations in 1983.

The airport was formerly known as Belfast City Airport until it was renamed in 2006 in memory of George Best, the famous footballer associated with East Belfast.

The airport handled 1.2 million passengers in 2003, 3.5% more than the previous year. A subsequent program of building and refurbishment has further increased its passenger and plane capacities. Passenger numbers in 2004 were over 2 million.

Contents

1 History
2 Expansion plans and objections
3 Renamed in memory of George Best
4 Airlines and destinations
5 External links

History

An airfield was established by Shorts beside their Belfast factory in 1937 as Sydenham Airport. This was Belfast's main civilian airport from 1938 to 1939. The airfield was requisitioned by the Royal Navy during the Second World War. Nutts Corner, a former RAF base, later became Belfast's main airport (Aldergrove would later become the primary airport in Northern Ireland). The Sydenham airfield continued to be used for military purposes until the 1970s, after which it was used by Shorts. In 1983, following interest from airlines and customers, the airfield was opened for commercial flights as Belfast Harbour Airport (then Belfast City Airport and now in its current guise ). Following major capital investment Bombardier sold BCA for £35 million to the Spanish company Ferrovial.

Ferrovial is one of Europe's leading construction groups and a growing airport management group. It also manages 13 airports: Sydney in Australia, 2 in the United Kingdom, including Bristol Airport, 9 in Mexico and one in Chile.

Expansion plans and objections

Because the airport is adjacent to residential areas the question of noise pollution is a major one and a source of public debate. [link] The airport has had to develop a noise management strategy due to a planning agreement, under which the airport operates, and operational noise abatement procedures.

The airport has recently applied for a complete removal of the limit on the seats it can sell (see external link below to Belfast City Airport submission to Planning Department - 'Additional Information Provided', p.6) - a key element of the 1997 planning agreement, which guards against over-expansion of an airport which is sited in a densely populated location. As a result, numerous residents' groups have formed a coalition - The Coalition Against Belfast City Airport Expansion - to protest against the airport's proposed expansion plans and to represent the views of residents at the forthcoming Examination in Public [link]. The dates of the public hearing are 14 and 15 June.

The number of residential areas of Belfast affected by large low flying aircraft has increased substantially, particularly with the introduction of larger aircraft, (for example BMI Airbus aircraft).

Restrictions applied to the airport include: flights have to operate between 6:30 am and 9:30pm, but extensions may be granted in exceptional circumstances to operate delayed flights up to midnight; there can only be 45,000 commercial aircraft movements in the year; airlines are supposed to offer no more than 1.5 million seats for sale on flights from the airport and the majority of flights must operate over Belfast Lough (currently only 54.8% in practice).

Renamed in memory of George Best

The new airport signage

In March 2006, it was decided to rename the airport in memory of the late Belfast footballer George Best. The new name - George Best Belfast City Airport [link] - and signage was revealed at the renaming ceremony attended by Best's family and friends on the May 22, 2006 - which would have been Best's 60th birthday.

In March 2006 Flybe, the airport's biggest operator, announced that it would be naming its Belfast City - Manchester service after the late footballer, dedicating a plane to him.

Airlines and destinations

The following scheduled airlines use Belfast City Airport (at May 2006):

Aer Arann (Cork)
Air Berlin (London-Stansted)
British Airways
* BA Connect (Birmingham, Manchester)
bmi (London-Heathrow)
British NorthWest Airlines (Blackpool, Isle of Man)
EuroManx (Isle of Man)
Flybe (Aberdeen, Birmingham, Bristol, Doncaster-Sheffield [Starts October 29 2006], Edinburgh, Exeter, Galway [Starts October 2006], Glasgow, Leeds/Bradford, Liverpool, London-Gatwick, Manchester, Newcastle, Southampton)

see also George Best Belfast City Airport connections for detailed listings

External links

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
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