Cardiff Airport - Facts, Figures and History

Cardiff Airport Facts

1.6 million passengers used Cardiff International airport in 2001!
75% of all passengers flew on charter services, 25% on scheduled services.
Most popular destinations from Cardiff International are:
1. Palma de Mallorca
2. Amsterdam
3. Alicante
4. Dublin
5. Tenerife
6. Malaga
7. Ibiza
8. Lanzarote
9. Gran Canaria
10. Faro
Passengers traveled to 45 destinations from Cardiff International Airport in 2001.
Approx 70% of passengers on the Cardiff - Amsterdam service with KLM are using Schiphol to link to world-wide destinations. Close to 125,000 passengers used the KLM service in 2001 making it the most popular scheduled service by a long way.
During the summer of 2001 a Ł3 million expansion programme was completed and Cardiff airport parking was improved with the addition of new car parks and improved signage, payment machines, enhanced security throughout plus a shuttle bus which runs between the long stay car park and terminal building in the summer season.
Since the airport was privatised by TBIplc in 1995, more than Ł20 million has been invested in improving customer services at Cardiff International Airport, resulting in first class facilities for leisure and business passengers alike. This figure also includes significant enhancements to the airport's fire and rescue equipment, including the replacement of its fleet of four fire appliances with new state-of-the-art 'Barracuda 6'.
The airport's runway is 2,354m long and 46m wide and, on average, up to 25 aircraft can take off and land every single hour.

Cardiff Airport History

In the 1940's the Air Ministry requisitioned land in the rural Vale of Glamorgan to set up a wartime satellite aerodrome and training base for RAF Spitfire pilots. Then early construction work began on Cardiff International Airport in 1941, and the airfield officially opened on the 7 April 1942 when it was taken over by No 53 Operational Training Unit. The commercial potential of the runway was not realised until the early 1950's at which point Aer Lingus started running a service to Dublin. Soon after a new terminal was built and the airport began serving flights to France, Belfast and Cork. In 1962 the passenger throughput exceeded 100,000 for the first time in the airport's history.

During 1965 the official control of the airport was relinquished by the MOD and Glamorgan County Council took over. In 1971 the first transatlantic flight took off from Cardiff and following further investment there was development of a new terminal building and control tower which is still used today. At the same time the main runway was doubled in length to 2.1 km allowing Cardiff Airport to accommodate wide bodied aircraft for the first time.

During the 70's local government reorganisation resulted in another transfer of the Airport's ownership to the three County Councils of South, Mid and West Glamorgan, the successors of the former Glamorgan County Council. Then in the early 80's the growth in the popularity of charter traffic to the Mediterranean meant that all time passenger levels exceeded one quarter of a million, at the same time some new links from Cardiff Airport to Canada were also established.

In 1986 the runway was extended by a further 0.225km leaving a bill of around 1 million GBP but the extension attracted more business to the airport from the new generation of jet aircrafts. The extra development of transatlantic links meant that charter flights to Florida were added to the routes out of Cardiff. Also in 1986 British Airways located their maintenance facility at Cardiff International Airport. The BA maintenance hangar is one of the largest in the world and provides heavy airframe and engineering maintenance for the British Airways fleet and for many third party carriers.

In the 90's Manx Airlines established their European air route hub at Cardiff. The Hub offered daily services to key business destinations within Europe and the UK and as a consequence of this passenger levels at Cardiff exceeded 100,000 for the first time in a single year.

In 2002 nearly 2 million passengers used Cardiff to fly to destinations all over the world and 25 aircraft took off and landed every hour on average.