Southampton Airport

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Southampton Airport
IATA: SOU - ICAO: EGHI
Summary
Airport type		Public
Operator		BAA plc
Serves		Southampton
Elevation AMSL		44 ft (13 m)
Coordinates		50°57′0.94″N, 1°21′24.49″W
Runways
Direction	Length		Surface
	ft	m
02/20	5,653	1,723	Asphalt

This airport is located in the United Kingdom, for the airport in Canada, see Southampton Airport (Ontario)

Southampton Airport (IATA: SOU, ICAO: EGHI) is the 20th largest airport in the UK, located in Eastleigh near Southampton. Southampton Airport is owned by BAA plc, which owns several other airports including the three busiest airports serving London. Provisional CAA statistics suggest that Southampton airport handled in excess of 1.8 million passengers during 2005.

Southampton International Airport has a CAA Public Use Aerodrome Licence (Number P690) that allows flights for the public transport of passengers or for flying instruction.

Contents 1 History 2 Links with the Spitfire 3 Airlines and destinations 4 Ground Transportation 5 External links

[edit] History

According to local history author John Edgar Mann's Book of the Stonehams the site's connection with aviation can be traced back to 1910 when pioneer pilot Eric Moon used the meadows belonging to North Stoneham Farm as a take-off and landing spot for his monoplane, Moonbeam Mk II.

During the First World War, when forces from the United States Navy arrived in 1917, work on the building of hangars began. At the peak of the American presence, some 4,000 officers and men were billeted in tents and huts along the adjacent London to Southampton railway line.

After that war, the site became a transit camp for refugees, mainly Russian, who were anxious to sail to America from the port of Southampton. The shipping companies Cunard and White Star Line (the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company) together with the Canadian Pacific railway formed the Atlantic Park Hostel Company to house them temporarily. In 1921 the hangars were converted into dormitories, kitchens and dining rooms.

The hostel was intended to be a short-term clearing house for those trans-migrants changing ships, but following changes to US immigration law which restricted entry to the United States under national origins quotas, some residents were forced to stay much longer. In 1924 about 980 Ukrainian Jewish would-be emigrants were cared for at the hostel. Some of them were still there seven years later, stranded between the US and UK which would not accept them, and unable to return the countries they had fled. Atlantic Park had a school, library, and synagogue while the refugees formed football teams that played local sides and =took part in local events, such as Eastleigh carnival.

At the height of its use 20,000 passed through Atlantic Park in 1928 but then figures started to fall away, leading to the closure of the hostel in 1931. In 1932 Southampton Corporation purchased the site and it became Southampton Municipal Airport.

[edit] Links with the Spitfire

In 1936 the first test flights of the Supermarine Spitfire were conducted at the airport, an event commemorated in 2004 with the erection of a near-full size sculpture of a Mk V Spitfire at the road entrance.

On March 5th, 2006 at 16:30 GMT, five restored Spitfires took off from Southampton Airport to commemorate the seventieth anniversary of the first flight the of the Spitfire at the precise same time as the test flights in 1936.

There are plans, supported by the local council, to rename the airport after R. J. Mitchell, designer of the Spitfire. However, the choice whether to rename the airport lies with BAA.

[edit] Airlines and destinations

• Aer Arann (Cork)
• Air France
  • operated by Brit Air (Paris-Charles de Gaulle)
• Aurigny Air Services (Alderney)
• British Airways
  • BA Connect (Edinburgh, Manchester)
• Eastern Airways (Aberdeen, Brussels, Inverness, Leeds/Bradford, Newcastle, Isle of Man)
• Flybe (Alicante, Amsterdam, Avignon, Belfast-City, Bergerac, Berne, Brest, Chambéry, Cherbourg, Dublin, Düsseldorf, Edinburgh, Faro, Galway [Starts December 16], Geneva, Glasgow, Guernsey, Hanover, Jersey, Leeds/Bradford, Limoges, Liverpool, Málaga, Manchester, Murcia, Newcastle, Nice [Starts 25 March, 2007] Palma, Perpignan, Rennes, Salzburg)
• Isles of Scilly Skybus (Isles of Scilly, Newquay)
• Scot Airways (Amsterdam)

[edit] Ground Transportation

Southampton Airport is served by a dedicated mainline railway station, Southampton Airport (Parkway), on the South Western Main Line from London Waterloo and Winchester to Southampton, Bournemouth and Weymouth, with a fast and frequent service to those places. The airport is also located close to the junction between the M3 motorway and M27 motorway, giving easy road access to Southampton, Winchester, Bournemouth, Portsmouth and places between.

[edit] External links

• Southampton Airport website