Dundee Airport

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Dundee Airport
IATA: DND - ICAO: EGPN
Summary
Airport type Public
Operator Dundee City Council
Serves Dundee
Elevation AMSL 17 ft (5 m)
Coordinates 56°27′9″N, 3°1′33″W
Runways
Direction Length Surface
ft m
10/28 4,593 1,400 Asphalt

Dundee Airport (IATA: DNDICAO: EGPN) is located 3 km from the centre of Dundee, Scotland or, for navigation purposes, 0.5 nautical mile (0.9 km) south[1] of the city. It lies on the shore of the Firth of Tay and overlooks the Tay Rail Bridge.

The airport was opened in 1963 on land reclaimed from the Firth of Tay. Originally it had a 900 metre grass runway. The first scheduled air service began on July 5, 1966, with a service to Glasgow. A fortnight later a feeder service was added for Turnhouse and Prestwick.[2] The service was stopped on October 31, 1967 after British Eagle reported substantial £10,000 losses. The grass runway was replaced by a 1,100 metres long tarmac runway in the 1970s and extended to the current length of 1,400 metres in the 1990s. The airport was granted "customs airport" status on April 16, 1982 [3] and runway edge lights were added in 1983.[4] The current terminal was opened in 1997 by the then EU transport commissioner Neil Kinnock.

Tayside Aviation operates a training facility and engineering workshop at the airport. This was supplemented by a maintenance hangar built in 1982. The airport welcomes general aviation traffic.

Dundee airport is currently running at a loss of over £1million each business year, which is expected to rise to almost £2 million by 2007-8 [5]. Despite rumours of closure or being taken over by Highlands and Islands Airports Limited, no decision has been made for its future [6]. At present the airport is looking to expand with more scheduled flights, although this would be limited to regional aircraft. Larger aircraft used by low-cost airlines, such as Boeing 737s, would have insufficient space to operate on its runway, which cannot be extended.

[edit] Scheduled Flights

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ UK AIP
  2. ^ CJP (July 5 1966). "First Dundee air service begins". The Courier.
  3. ^ (April 17 1981) "Dundee airport granted customs status". The Courier and Advertiser.
  4. ^ (June 8 1983) "£91,000 spent on Dundee airport". The Courier and Advertiser.
  5. ^ Council can no longer bear costs of loss-making Dundee airport (HTML) (2005). Retrieved on 5 October 2005.
  6. ^ Dundee Airport transfer 'not cut and dried' (HTML) (2006). Retrieved on 28 February 2006.