Cardiff Airport Parking

Cardiff airport history

Cardiff Airport began life in the early 1940’s when land in the Vale of Glamorgan was claimed by the Air Ministry to set up a satellite aerodrome and training base for RAF pilots. Construction commenced in 1941 with the airfield officially opening in April 1942, when it was taken over by the Number 53 Operational Training Unit. In 1952, Air Lingus began operating a route between Cardiff and Dublin. Afterwards, a new terminal building followed, as well as flights between Cardiff and France, Belfast and Cork. Because of the increase in the numbers of routes as well as the holiday charter business, the number of passengers was above 100,000 in 1962.

In 1986, at a cost of about £1 million, the runway was extended by 750 feet. As a result, the airport was able to handle 747 jumbo jets, and this attracted more business with additional routes to Florida and Canada. It was also key in attracting the British Airways Maintenance facility to the airport. The maintenance hangar is one of the largest in the world (at 250 metres x 175 metres) and it provides heavy airframe and engineering maintenance for the British Airways fleet as well as for third party carriers.

In the beginning of the 1990s, Manx Airlines established their European Hub at Cardiff; this increased the airport’s scheduled services significantly by increasing daily services to key business destinations. As a result, passenger levels exceeded 100,000 for the first time in a single year.

The airport was privatised in 1995, with shares sold to TBI Plc, a Welsh Property and Development firm. The company is now a subsidiary of Abertis Airports.

The airport is not only the main maintenance base for British Airways but also home to a variety of aerospace firms, and therefore a major contributor to the surrounding region’s economy.

Cardiff Airport is the 20th largest airport in the UK, with over two million passengers a year.

In October 2004, the airport was named as one of the top ten best airports in the world, by the Telegraph Travel Awards * [1].

In 2002 BA withdrew their routes from the airport which led to the new low-cost carrier bmibaby arriving at the airport bringing new routes along with it.

The volume of charter flights operated from the airport in recent years has steadily increased as have flights by low fare carriers bmibaby, Thomsonfly and Zoom.

Air Wales ceased operating in April 2006, with most routes transferring to other carriers, while in April Ryanair's once-daily Dublin service was replaced by three daily Aer Arann services.

In mid 2006, work began on upgrading the airport terminal, apron and ATC to provide additional capacity. The airport was used by 1.9 million passengers in 2005 and is increasing by 13 per cent for the year to date.

This history article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Cardiff Airport".