Manchester Airport (IATA: MAN , ICAO: EGCC ) is a major airport located at Ringway in the City of Manchester within Greater Manchester, UK, and is the busiest airport in the country outside the London region in terms of passenger numbers. It offers non-stop scheduled flights to destinations across Europe, North America, Africa, South Asia, the Caribbean, the Middle East and the Far East.
A small part of the airport extends into Cheshire East. The terminals are located —7.5 NM (13.9 km; 8.6 mi) southwest of Manchester city centre. It officially opened on 25 June 1938, and was initially known as Ringway Airport . During World War II it was called RAF Ringway, and from 1975 until 1986 the title was Manchester International Airport .
The airport is owned and managed by the Manchester Airports Group (MAG), which is a holding company owned by the ten metropolitan borough councils of Greater Manchester, and is the largest British-owned airport group. Each of these councils has their coat of arms displayed on banners hung from the lamp posts approaching the airport. The airport has won awards including World's Best Airport 1995 and Travel Weekly Globe Awards' UK Best Airport 2008. The airport has two parallel runways, three terminals and a ground transport interchange, including a railway station.
Manchester Airport has a CAA Public Use Aerodrome Licence (Number P712) that allows flights for the public transport of passengers and for flying instruction. In 2008, Manchester Airport handled 21,219,195 passengers with 204,610 aircraft movements, making it the fourth busiest airport in the United Kingdom in passenger numbers and third in terms of total aircraft movements.
History
See also: RAF RingwayThe airport originated in mid 1934 when the location was selected to build an airfield. On 25 July 1934, Manchester City Council voted narrowly in favour of the Ringway site as the City's new airport. The site for the planned airport was at the time in the Cheshire parish of Ringway (as it was south of the River Mersey).
Construction was ceremonially started by the Lord Mayor on 28 November 1935 and was completed for civil aviation use by early summer 1938. The airport was officially opened on 25 June 1938 during a public air display that included both civil and RAF aircraft and received its first scheduled flight, a KLM operated Douglas DC-2 from Amsterdam. The airport at this time was called Ringway, named after the parish it lay within. Pre-war, KLM was the only international operator out of Ringway and offered a request stop at Doncaster. 4000 passengers used the airport in 1938 and another 4000 during the first eight months of 1939, before declaration of war brought an end to civil operations.
Construction of a Royal Air Force station commenced in 1939 on the north east edge of the airfield. RAF Ringway was used for both operational flying and training. The main user was No.1 Parachute Training School RAF which trained over 60,000 paratroopers between June 1940 and March 1946. The trainees parachuted over Tatton Park, after receiving permission from land owner, Lord Egerton.
A complex of hangars and assembly sheds on the north west side of the airfield was used by Fairey Aviation for the construction, modification and testing of over 4,000 aircraft. From spring 1939, Avro used the 1938-built main hangar for assembly and testing the prototype Avro Manchester, Avro Lancaster and Avro Lincoln bombers. Three southside hangars were erected in 1942/1943 and used for the assembly of Avro York military transport aircraft.
The advent of heavier aircraft types resulted in the all-grass landing area being badly damaged in wet weather during the winter of 1940/41. The ruts froze during cold weather, damaging the undercarriages of taxying aircraft. Two asphalt runways of 3,000 ft (910 m) length were therefore hastily laid down between June and December 1941. The runways were designated 06/24 and 10/28. The former was lengthened to 4,200 ft (1,300 m) by January 1943 to accommodate the four-engined aircraft now using RAF Ringway and the 3,300 ft (1,000 m) Runway 02/20 was also constructed. Runways 02/20 and 10/28 ceased to be used by airliners by the mid 1950s but the latter was used by light aircraft for another 30 years. Both are now permanently out of use.
After the war the airport grew massively. The first trans-atlantic schedule commenced on 28 October 1953, operated by Sabena Belgian World Airlines to New York's Idlewild Airport (now JFK Airport). By 1958 the airport was handling 500,000 passengers annually. Twenty four hour operation was introduced on 1 April 1952. Another main runway extension (from 5,900 ft (1,800 m) to 7000 ft) was opened on 23 April 1958 permitting regular non-stop scheduled flights to North America. Terminal 1 was the airport's first purpose-built post-war terminal and opened in late 1962; Manchester was then the only airport in Europe to have aircraft piers.
In 1972 the airport was renamed "Manchester International Airport" and was designated an "international gateway" in the 1980s. In 1974, a Local Government Review placed the airport entirely within the city of Manchester boundaries in the new metropolitan Greater Manchester area. However, due to constant expansion of the airport it had expanded back in to Cheshire by the early 1980s. The airport has since expanded farther in to Cheshire, mainly due to the second runway being almost entirely within Cheshire.
The main runway was extended to its current length of 10,000 ft (3,000 m), opening on 17 August 1982 to attract long-haul flights from worldwide destinations. In 1988 the airport celebrated its Golden Jubilee and by this time was handling 9.5 million passengers annually. Due to increasing passenger numbers a second terminal was soon needed. In 1993, Terminal 2 and the airport railway station opened, connecting the airport to the national rail network.
In 1997 planning approval was granted for the building of Manchester's "Runway Two", now Runway 23L/05R (the fourth runway to be constructed on the site) and work started the same year. It opened in 2001 at a cost of £172 million and was the first full-length commercial runway to open in the UK for over 20 years. Another milestone was achieved in 2004, when the airport reached 20 million passengers a year. Also that year, the new £60 million integrated public transport interchange was opened (called "The Station"), bringing bus, coach and rail passengers under one roof. Manchester Airport plans to accept Airbus A380 aircraft in the next few years, as part of the larger expansion at the airport and is already certified as a diversion aerodrome for A380 flights.
On 7 June 2007, at 00:00 UTC (01:00 BST), Manchester Airport's runway assignments were changed in relation to the magnetic compass bearings. The previous headings for the runways were 056° and 236° with assignments 06L/24R and 06R/24L respectively. The new headings for the runways are 054° and 234° with new assignments of 05L/23R and 05R/23L respectively. The signs located on taxiways and entrances to the runway were changed on the evening of the 6 June 2007. The runway designators changed at the same time.
Passenger numbers
Manchester is the fourth busiest airport in the UK and the biggest outside of London, in terms of annual passenger throughput.
In 2007, Manchester Airport was the world's 22nd busiest airport in terms of international passengers, down from 19th position in 2006 and 17th in 2005.
The airport's long range plan, published in July 2006, forecasts that passenger numbers will increase to approximately 38 million passengers annually by 2015. This would require an average annual growth rate from 2007 to 2015 of 7.1% and a sharp recovery from the reductions during the two years to December 2008. Further growth is postulated to 50 million by 2030.
In 2008 21.2 million passengers used Manchester Airport, a reduction of 4.0% compared with 2007 and below the 2004 total. There were 204,610 aircraft movements during the year, the third highest in the UK.
Security
Manchester Airport is policed by the Greater Manchester Police. Several security related incidents have occurred at the airport in recent years.
- In 2002, a security firm successfully smuggled fake explosives, detonators and genuine firearms onto a flight.
- In 2004, the BBC's Whistleblower program revealed security failures at the airport, including faulty metal detectors and a lack of regular random baggage checks.
- In 2005, after spotted acting suspiciously, police used a taser to shoot a man on the apron, after he appeared to resist arrest.
- On 6 June 2006, Aabid Hussain Khan, 21, of West Yorkshire and a 16 year old boy were arrested at the airport and later charged under Section 57 of the Terrorism Act, for conspiracy to murder and conspi
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