Manchester Airport Totally Explained

Everything about Manchester Airport totally explained

Manchester Airport is a major airport in Manchester, England. Opening to passenger traffic in June 1938, it was initially known as Ringway Airport. During World War II it officially became RAF Ringway, and from 1975 until 1986 the title Manchester International Airport was used. It is located on the boundary between Cheshire and Manchester in the metropolitan county of Greater Manchester, south-west from the city centre.
   The airport is owned by the ten local authorities of Greater Manchester under the name Manchester Airports Group (MAG) which is controlled by the ten metropolitan borough councils and is the largest British-owned airport group. Each of these councils have their coat of arms displayed on banners hung from the lamp posts approaching the airport.
   The airport has two parallel runways, three terminals and 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 2007, Manchester Airport handled 22,112,625 passengers with 222,703 aircraft movements, making it the fourth busiest airport in the United Kingdom in passenger numbers and third in terms of total aircraft movements.

History

The origins of the airport can be dated back to 1934 when the location was selected as a new site 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. Construction started on 28 November 1935 and was complete by early summer 1938. The airport was opened 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. Prewar, KLM was the only international operator out of Ringway and offered a request stop at Doncaster.
   Construction of a Royal Air Force station commenced in 1939 on the NE edge of the airfield. RAF Ringway was used for both operational flying and training. The main user was No.1 Parachute Training School which trained over 60,000 paratroopers. A complex of hangars and assembly sheds on the NW side of the airfield was used by Fairey Aviation for the construction, modification and testing of over 4000 aircraft of several types. 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 1942/43 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. Two runways of 3000 ft length were therefore hastily and skimpily laid down between June and December 1941. The runways were designated 06/24 and 10/28 and the former was lengthened to 4200 ft by January 1943 to accommodate the four-engined aircraft now using RAF Ringway.
   After the war the airport grew massively and by 1958 the airport was handling 500,000 passengers annually. During the 1950s a range of developments took place, including another runway extension and the introduction of 24-hour operations. Terminal 1 was the airport's first purpose-built postwar 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 1981 the main runway was extended to its current length of 10,000 ft 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 second runway and construction 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 Britain for over 20 years. Manchester is the only UK airport, other than Heathrow, to have two commercial runways in operation. 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.
   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 6th June, 2007. The runway designators changed at the same time.

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