Glasgow Prestwick Airport | |||||||||||||||
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Summary | |||||||||||||||
Airport type | Public | ||||||||||||||
Owner | Scottish Government | ||||||||||||||
Operator | Prestwick Aviation Holdings Ltd | ||||||||||||||
Serves | Glasgow, Prestwick, Strathclyde, Scotland | ||||||||||||||
Location | Prestwick, South Ayrshire | ||||||||||||||
Elevation AMSL | 65 ft / 20 m | ||||||||||||||
Coordinates | 55°30′34″N 004°35′40″W / 55.50944°N 4.59444°WCoordinates: 55°30′34″N 004°35′40″W / 55.50944°N 4.59444°W | ||||||||||||||
Website | glasgowprestwick.com | ||||||||||||||
Map | |||||||||||||||
Location in South Ayrshire | |||||||||||||||
Runways | |||||||||||||||
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Statistics (2016) | |||||||||||||||
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Passengers | 673,232 |
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Passenger change 15-16 | 10.2% |
Aircraft movements | 25,714 |
Movements change 14-15 | 13.0% |
Glasgow Prestwick Airport is an international airport serving the Greater Glasgow urban area, situated 1 nautical mile (1.9 km; 1.2 mi) northeast of the town of Prestwick in South Ayrshire and 32 mi (51 km) from the city centre of Glasgow. It is the second busiest of the two airports serving Glasgow, with the busiest being Glasgow Airport which is situated within the Greater Glasgow conurbation itself (located in the town of Paisley in Renfrewshire). It is set to become the European hub for commercial space flights, and is Scotland's main candidate for development into the first UK Spaceport.
Glasgow Prestwick is Scotland's fifth busiest airport in terms of passenger traffic, after Edinburgh Airport, Glasgow Airport, Aberdeen Airport, and Inverness Airport, although it is the largest in terms of land area. Passenger traffic peaked at 2.4 million in 2007 following a decade of rapid growth, driven in part by the boom in no-frills airlines, particularly Ryanair which uses the airport as an operating base. In recent years, passenger traffic has declined; around 670,000 passengers passed through the airport in 2016.
The airport began life around 1934 – primarily as a training airfield – with a hangar, offices and control tower were constructed by the end of 1935. The airport's original owner was David Fowler McIntyre, also the owner of Scottish Aviation with backing from the then Duke of Hamilton. MacIntyre and Hamilton were the first aviators to fly over Mount Everest in 1933.