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Prestwick Airport
Airport Directory » United Kingdom » Glasgow » Prestwick AirportGlasgow Prestwick Airport (Scottish Gaelic: Port-adhair Ghlaschu Phreastabhaig) (IATA: PIK, ICAO: EGPK) is an international airport assisting Glasgow, located 1 NM (1.9 kilometre; 1.2 mi) nor'-east of the city of Prestwick in South Ayrshire, Scotland. Although officially named Glasgow Prestwick Airport, because it is 46 kilometre (29 mi) from the town, it is frequently referred to as merely Prestwick Airport. The last 10 yr has seen unprecedented growing in rider traffic using the airport driven, in the briny, by the din in no-frills air hose, particularly from Ryanair who is Prestwick's largest renter and uses the airport as a hub. In 2008, Prestwick dealt over 2.4 million riders.
In physical terms, Prestwick is Scotland's biggest commercial field, although in rider traffic terms it sits in 4th location after Edinburgh Airport, Glasgow's briny airport, Glasgow International, and Aberdeen Airport all of which are functioned by BAA.
History
Glasgow Prestwick Airport from the airThe airport set about life around 1934 — principally as a preparation field — with a depot, business office and control tower being in location by the finish of 1935. The airport's original owner was David Fowler McIntyre, who was also the owner of Scottish Aviation with backing from the then Duke of Hamilton. MacIntyre and Hamilton had antecedently been the 1st flyers to wing atop Mount Everest in 1933. With the oncoming of World War II, the airport germinated quickly in say to manage the big volume of American aircraft ferry traffic.
In 1938 rider installations were added, which were used continuously until the carrying out of a massive investing program to do Prestwick compatible with the new jet plane transports which were getting available. A landing track extension, parallel taxi strip, relate route, and an all-new depot construction were opened by the Queen Mother in 1964. The extension of Runway 13/31 do considerable interruption to route users as the main route from Monkton into Prestwick was currently cover the macadamise of the being landing track. This had to be purely commanded by a "stage cover" type system until the new circumference route was finished.
Military use
The United States Air Force (USAF) functioned a ground in 1952 on the location of the original airport using former Royal Air Force (RAF) installations (the USAF Military Air Transport Service (MATS) 1631st Air Base Squadron), and in 1953 on the Monkton side of the airport, both used by the USAF MATS. The USAF ground closed in 1966, though division of the location is still busy by the Royal Navy with RNAS Prestwick, more popularly known as HMS Gannet, where a disengagement of Sea Kings supply a hunt and deliver office, covering 1 of the biggest SAR area of the UK including Ben Nevis, the Lakes, Northern Ireland and 200 NM (370 kilometre; 230 mi) past the Irish seashore.
There had been advised programmes straighten up pre-war for the station conflict yr which would have been sort out as highly ambitious, particularly in the austere post-war yr. Among the various proposals was a four mi long independent landing track, an integral load pace and railroad terminal, and a semifinal wrap mooring for flying boat and other amphibious aircraft. However, the landing track was ne'er continued to that level, and the worsen in hydroplane and flying boat functioning also averaged that the latter proposal was ne'er ordained. It is say nevertheless, that many yr since those proposals were do, that Prestwick Airport does have its own train station, something that even Glasgow Airport does not have.
Industrial use
Scottish Aviation constructed a manufacturing plant using the original depot construction and depots at Prestwick, which brought forth such aircraft as the Prestwick Pioneers, and afterward the Jetstream and Bulldog. One division of the mill, the large white art-deco construction which stays to this solar day, had in fact been the Palace of Engineering that had been made as division of the Empire Exhibition at Bellahouston Park in Glasgow in 1938. When Scottish Aviation united with British Aerospace as a effect of the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act, BAe back up aircraft production at the location until 1998, principally updates of the Jetstream line. Today BAE Systems retains a little installation at Prestwick for its Regional Aircraft part, with the marching independent constructing location, bringing forth elements for Airbus and Boeing aircraft, having been sold to Spirit AeroSystems in January 2006.
In the set about, Prestwick was the only Scottish airport let to function a transatlantic relate, mostly due to the real benignant condition on the Ayrshire seashore. Indeed, with a much lower relative incidence of fog than anybody other airport in Great Britain due to a geologic anomalousness, Prestwick has the repute of being "Britain's only fog-free airport". This is maybe 1 ground it pull off to avoid aggregative closing when it looked that BAA appeared to be run out functioning. It was also part a political determination to silence those that call into question wherefore Glasgow necessitated 2 airports when Glasgow Corporation had already placed money construction Glasgow Airport.
Although British Airways had stopped regular rider functioning in the late 1970s, BA elongated to intermittently use Prestwick as a location for airplane pilot grooming, particularly for preparation Concorde airplane pilots. Concorde got a semi-regular visitant to the airport, and so BA and a figure of other major air hose still use Prestwick for airplane pilot grooming.
Elvis Presley
Prestwick Airport is also see to be the only piece of United Kingdom district on which Elvis Presley of all time position human foot, when the United States Army transport aeroplane transporting him place halt to refuel in 1960, whilst en path from Germany. A lounge, bearing his name, and a marker reflecting this event were kick off in 2006. However, on the 21st of April 2008, during a BBC2 wireless question with Ken Bruce, theater promoter and chair of Everton F.C., Bill Kenwright, demanded that Elvis see London 2 yr prior to this, with his friend, Tommy Steele. Immediately after, Airport dominances published a statement calling for that photographic, or other ground of the stated see be supplied, lest they shall elongate with their current demand.
Prestwick Air Show
Prestwick Airport also used to host a bi-annual airshow, the 1st of which was held on 30 September 1967. While real little in scale compared to such presents as RAF Fairford or Farnborough, the air present was a local attractive force and forced a considerable crowd. There were constant quantity bruits in after yr that the SR-71 Blackbird reconnaissance mission aircraft would do an visual aspect, but this came to nothing, most likely due to troubles connected with managing the special fuel. The last air present was in 1992 and there have been no attempts at recreating it since.
Change in the 1990s
In 1991 the newly-privatised British Airports Authority, BAA Limited consolidated their portfolio of UK airports. Part of this was to travel all transatlantic traffic going away from Scotland to Glasgow International Airport, near Paisley, and sell Prestwick off to the private sector. In the early-to-mid 1990s rider figs fell aggressively with only cargo traffic and a little figure of charter voyages using Prestwick on a regular ground. At this point the airport face up an unsure hereafter.
1994 marked the start of a renaissance for the battle airport. It took the shrewd travel of construction its own train station on the being Ayrshire Coast Line (Glasgow-Ayr), which runs straight past the field. Then, Irish budget line Ryanair opened a road to the airport from Dublin. This guided to another path to London the coming after yr. The ensuing rapid development of European no-frills air hose in the late 1990s has seen Prestwick turn even bigger than it had of all time been in traffic terms under province ownership. Ryanair currently assists more than 20 destinations from Prestwick – currently 1 of their upkeep hubs – and other budget air hose have also moved into the airport.
Today, as good as the booming no-frills section, Prestwick has elongated its traditional strategical office as a refuelling point for armed forces aircraft – the USAF, RAF and the Canadian Forces Air Command are frequent visitants for instance. Cargo traffic has also get another fastness of Prestwick with the vast bulk of Scotland's Boeing 747 Freighter traffic moving into via the airport.
The airport is in private owned by Infratil, a New Zealand investment corporation which also owns Wellington International Airport and Kent International Airport at Manston Ramsgate . In April 2005, Infratil finished a major £3 million restoration of the depot construction, and also polemically rebranded the airport using the phrase "Pure Dead Brilliant", taken straight from the Glasgow chuck. Some of this rebranding has been controversial, in specific the redecoration of the airport bar. The bar was rebranded in February 2006 with a logotype show a adult male in a kilt, unconscious with an empty bottle of whiskey. Despite remonstrations that it furthered the incorrect mental image of Scotland to foreign visitants and abashed local traveler, the airport direction take a firm stand the logotype was "playfulness and visually exciting". However, the logotype was take on March 3, 2006, only several hebdomads after its entry, after the intercession of the South Ayrshire Licensing Board who stated the logotype trivialized excessive imbibing.
On six July 2005, Prestwick Airport got the entry point into Scotland for the world's most mighty leaders on the eve of the 31st G8 peak which was being held in Gleneagles. Strathclyde Police implemented an unprecedented stage of security around the airport for the continuance of the peak. Officers from laws throughout the UK were outlined in to attend to in the functioning, including armed military officers. In readying for the districting of Air Force One, transporting former US president George W. Bush, the A77, which runs past the finish of the independent landing track, was polemically closed while the aircraft was on final draw close.
Original article.