Newcastle Airport
Encyclopedia : N : NE : NEW : Newcastle Airport
- This article is about the airport in England, for other airports with this name, see Newcastle Airport (disambiguation).
|-! colspan="4" style="text-align: center; background-color: #4682B4; color: white;" |Newcastle Airport
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|-!align="left" valign="top"|07/25 |valign="top" align="right"|7,650 |valign="top" align="right"|2,332 |valign="top"|Asphalt
Newcastle Airport is the ninth largest airport in the United Kingdom. It is located about 6 miles (11 km) from Newcastle city centre.
Newcastle Airport is owned by seven local authorities (51%) and Copenhagen Airport (49%). The seven local authorities are: Durham County Council, Gateshead MBC, City of Newcastle, North Tyneside MBC, Northumberland County Council, South Tyneside MBC and City of Sunderland.
The airport has seen tremendous growth in recent years. The CAA recently named Newcastle as the fastest growing regional airport in the UK. The Airport handled 5.19 million passengers in 2005. It was also voted the North's favourite airport in a survey by Wanderlust.
History
The Airport was first opened on the 26th of July, 1935 by the Secretary of State for Air, Sir Phillip Cunliffe-Lister. Incorporating a clubhouse, hangar, workshops, fuel garage and grass runway, at the time it cost £35,000 to build.Although during World War Two the main airport in the region was located at Cramlington in Northumberland, following the war a decision was taken to concentrate development on the present airport site. Accordingly, in the early 1950s, ex-RAF fighter pilot Jim Denyer was appointed as Airport Manager and within a few years over 5,000 people were using the Airport each year to travel to destinations such as Jersey and the Isle of Wight.
The 1960s saw tremendous growth in passenger numbers at the Airport. This was mainly due to British people taking foreign holidays to places such as Spain instead of holidaying within the UK. A new runway was built, along with an apron and a new air traffic control tower. These new additions were opened by the then-Prime Minister, Harold Wilson.
In the 1970s, with passenger figures approaching one million per year, the Airport status was changed to Category B, making it a regional international airport. The 1980s saw further investment in check-in, catering and duty free facilities. In 2000 a new £27 million extension was opened by Prime Minister Tony Blair and the first low-cost airline arrived at the airport, with Go-Fly inaugurating a service to London Stansted following the withdrawal from the route by the now defunct Gill Airways. 2001 saw the acquisition of a 49% stake in the Airport by Copenhagen Airports.
Airlines and destinations
Scheduled services
- Aer Lingus (Dublin [starts 29th October 2006])
- Air Transat (Toronto [seasonal])
- Air France (Paris-Charles de Gaulle)
- Air Malta (Malta)
- Air Scotland (Girona)
- British Airways (London-Heathrow, London-Gatwick)
- Eastern Airways (Aberdeen, Birmingham (UK), Cardiff, Inverness, Isle of Man, London City, Southampton, Stornaway, Wick)
- easyJet (Alicante, Barcelona, Belfast-International, Berlin-Schönefeld, Bristol, Budapest, Faro, Geneva, Ibiza, London-Stansted, Málaga, Nice, Palma, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Prague, Rome Ciampino)
- Flybe (Belfast City, Exeter, Jersey, Southampton)
- Hapag-Lloyd Express (Hanover)
- Jet2.com (Amsterdam, Bergen, Cork, Menorca, Murcia, Pisa, Tenerife-South [starts 3 October])
- KLM (Amsterdam)
- Lufthansa (Dusseldorf)
- Ryanair (Dublin, Milan-Bergamo, Oslo-Torp)
- Scandinavian Airlines System (Copenhagen)
- SN Brussels Airlines (Brussels)
- Thomsonfly (Alicante, Ibiza, Málaga, Palma, Tenerife-South [starts 3 November])
- Widerøe (Bergen, Stavanger)
Charter flights
Destinations in Europe, the Middle East and North America are served from Newcastle Airport by charter airlines. Operators include BH Air, bmi British Midland, Eurocypria Airlines, Excel Airways, First Choice Airways, Futura, LTE International Airways, MyTravel Airways, Monarch, Flyjet, Thomsonfly and Thomas Cook Airlines.Surface access
Light rail
The Airport is connected the Tyne and Wear Metro service linking it directly with both Newcastle (22 mins) and Sunderland (45 mins) city centres.
Road transport
The Airport is connected to the A1 trunk road by the A696 dual carriageway. A regular bus service ([101]) also runs from the airport to Newcastle and South East Northumberland. A half-hourly service ([76/77]) runs between the airport and Newcastle City Centre, with a limited service ([102]) linking the Airport with the MetroCentre shopping centre.Ancillary services
The main handling agents at the Airport are Swissport UK (previously Groundstar) and Servisair/Globeground.There are two hotels on the Airport site, the [Britannia Airport Hotel] and a [Premier Travel Inn], with an additional Premier Travel Inn located at Callerton, near the general aviation terminal. There are also a large number of hotels in Newcastle and the surrounding area.
Statistics
| Number of Passengers | Number of Movements | Freight (tonnes) | Mail (tonnes) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1997 | 2,592,000 | 81,279 | 1,219 | 3,489 |
| 1998 | 2,920,000 | 81,299 | 678 | 3,631 |
| 1999 | 2,934,000 | 79,291 | 776 | 3,409 |
| 2000 | 3,147,000 | 82,940 | 526 | 3,720 |
| 2001 | 3,376,358 | 82,524 | 783 | 2,859 |
| 2002 | 3,387,222 | 79,173 | 1,438 | 2,368 |
| 2003 | 3,903,340 | 75,113 | 924 | 2,576 |
| 2004 | 4,707,818 | 77,721 | 799 | 7,756 |
| 2005 | 5,187,182 | 55,494 | 199 | 7,820 |
| Source: United Kingdom Civil Aviation Authority [link] | ||||
Future plans
The Airport recently published a [Master Plan] that set out development proposals for the airport until 2016. In the near term, these include building a multi-storey car park to replace the current short-stay parking, a new 187-bedroom [on-site hotel] and the expansion of the freight facilities on the south side of the airport. Feasibility studies are being carried out to evaluate the longer-term proposals that include:- extending the runway at its eastmost end,
- converting the junction with the A696 into a grade-separated junction to cater for the expected increase in traffic levels, and,
- the building of a heavy rail link to connect the airport with the National Rail network.
External links
- [Official Newcastle Airport site]
- [Air North history and spotters site]
- [Metro timetable from the airport] (PDF)
- [Newcastle Airport Extenstion Opened] - Article from the Copenhagen Airports website.
- ["Mission control"] - Local newspaper article about the future Air Traffic Control tower.
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