Airports closest to the city
It seems that more and more airports these days are claiming to be in cities that are really many miles away (take a look at our previous blog post for some of the worst offenders!) So we thought you might like to know which airports are at the other end of the scale, being the closest to the cities they are named after. Here are 5 of the best.
Gibraltar Airport
This airport serves the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar and gets a gold star for being just 500 metres from the city. You can walk into the centre, or if you prefer, you can walk to the border with Spain and cross into another country on foot. There are also taxis and buses into Gibraltar for those with heavy luggage, but taxis are not allowed to cross the border into Spain.
San Diego Airport
San Diego’s airport is just 2 miles (3 km) from the city centre. There is a Metro Bus which will take you downtown in 10 minutes. However, we all know that in the USA, the car rules, so you might want to rent one. If so, there are courtesy telephones near the baggage claim in each terminal, and a shuttle bus will take you to the rental office of your choice.
Dubai International Airport
This luxurious airport is just 2.5 miles (4 km) from Dubai city centre. There are local buses to the city, or you can take a special air-conditioned airport bus, which provides transportation to over 80 hotels.
Taipei Songshan Airport
You will find the airport serving Taipei, in Taiwan, about 3 miles (5km) from the city centre. Taxis are readily available outside the airport and will take 5-15 minutes to get into the city. Taipei has a metro system called the MRT, but this does not at present run to the airport. The nearest station is a 5 or 10 minute walk away.
Lisbon Airport
Last on our list is Lisbon Airport, which is a very reasonable 4 miles (7km) from the city centre. The best way to get there is by taxi, which takes about 15 minutes, or bus, which takes about 20. The nearest Metro station is 15 minutes away from the airport by bus.
We’d like to hear from you!
Which airports do you find most convenient for their city? What are your tips for the best way to get into the city centre?
Avoid airports with long city transfers!
Have you ever flown into an airport and found yourself in a totally different city to the one you expected? You could have got on the wrong plane by mistake, but it’s more likely to be the result of a “creative” naming policy that sees airports called after bigger cities which are actually miles and miles away. Here are some of the worst offenders – watch out for them next time you travel!
Frankfurt (Hahn)
At 77 miles (124 km) from central Frankfurt, this is the best example of misleading naming we can find. In fact, Ryanair were told not to advertise it as “Frankfurt” anymore, until the airport officially rebranded itself as Frankfurt Hahn. There is no train, so you have to either drive or catch the bus, which takes an hour and 45 minutes to reach the city in which the airport is supposedly located!
Munich West (Memmingen)
Every year, the streets of Memmingen are filled with bemused passengers who arrive for Oktoberfest, expecting to find themselves in Munich. They ask cab drivers to take them to the Hofbräuhaus, and are puzzled as to the high prices quoted. This is because the airport is actually 71 miles (114 km) from the city of Munich, which takes an hour and a half to reach by train. The airport blames low cost airlines for describing it in this way – it is also known as Allgäu Airport. But the town of Memmingen is now thinking of capitalising on the situation by organising its own mini Oktoberfest.
Oslo (Torp)
This airport is really 68 miles (110 km) or an hour and a half from Oslo. It’s been a popular destination for the low cost airlines, but if you’re going to Oslo you’d be better flying into Rygge which is about 37 miles (60 km) away from the city. Ryanair is now expanding its services to Rygge, a relatively new airport which just opened in 2007.
Stockholm (Skavsta and Västerås)
Both of these airports are a long way from Stockholm – Skavsta about 62 miles (100 km) and Västerås about 75 miles (120 km). A better choice would be Stockholm Arlanda, which is only 26 miles (42 km).
London (Oxford)
If you got on a bus that said it was going to London and you were dropped off in Oxford, you wouldn’t be too pleased, but that’s what happens when passengers catch a plane to this airport, which is 60 miles (97 km) from the centre of the capital. You could argue that for someone coming in from America, an extra 60 miles at the end of the journey wouldn’t seem like too much. But its main business at the moment seems to be charter flights from Jersey, so the time to drive to London after landing might be as long as the actual flight!
We’d like to hear from you!
Have you found an airport that is further than this from the city? What kind of difficulties did it cause?
World’s Biggest Airports
King Fahd International Airport
This vast airport is spread over 301 square miles of land in Damman, Saudi Arabia. That is an area bigger than many cities – in fact, 3 times the size of Edinburgh – and even bigger than some countries, including the neighbouring Bahrain. In comparison, Heathrow Airport covers less than 5 square miles. Despite its vast size, King Fahd Airport only has the capacity to handle 7 million passengers a year, and actually receives many less. Heathrow, on the other hand, has nearly 68 million travellers passing through each year.
King Khaled International Airport
At 87 square miles, this is another huge airport in Saudi Arabia. It is just outside Riyadh and is actually the main gateway to the country, seeing up to 14 million passengers a year. It has one of the world’s tallest air traffic control towers at 265 ft and the terminal buildings contain a mosque that can hold 5000 worshippers. The airport is also an emergency landing site for NASA’s space shuttle.
Al Maktoum International Airport
When Dubai’s new airport is finished, it will be the third biggest in the world in terms of land mass. It will cover 54 square miles and receive over 120 million passengers a year. It is due to open in 2010 and will be capable of handling all the new-generation aircraft like the A380 superjumbo. This model shows what the finished site will look like.
Denver International Airport
At 53 square miles, Denver Airport just misses out on third place in the size stakes. It’s still huge – twice the size of Manhattan Island and the largest in the USA. It has 6 runways and is the 10th busiest in the world in terms of passenger numbers. Its distinctive fibreglass roof mirrors the peaks and valleys of the surrounding Rocky Mountains.
Beijing International Airport
Another way of measuring the largest airport is to look at the size of its terminals. The world’s largest terminal complex is now at Beijing International Airport, after its development for the 2008 Olympics. With a floor space of 10 million square feet, the third terminal is also the largest freestanding structure in Asia. It was designed by Norman Foster, who also built the Gherkin in London and the Millennium Bridge. The new terminal is nearly 2 miles long and from the air, it is supposed to look like a giant red dragon – the traditional symbol of China.
We’d like to hear from you!
What’s the biggest airport you’ve ever been to? Is bigger always better? Please leave your comments below.
Credits
Photo 1 – Leslie E. Robertson Associates, R.L.L.P. – http://www.lera.com/
Photo 2 – airport-technology.com
Photo 3 – Imre Solt – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dubai_World_Central_Airport_1_Imresolt.jpg
Photo 4 – http://www.call2web.com/
Photo 5 – http://www.gabriellai.com/
Airports named after celebrities
More than 50 airports worldwide have been named after the great and the good, from politicians, to musicians, to sportsmen. Usually they don’t get to enjoy the honour because they have to be dead first, but that’s not always the case. George Bush senior has an airport in Houston, Texas named after him, and he is still very much alive.
The celebrities are usually local people who have achieved fame and acclaim in some area of their life. It makes sense that an airport, as the gateway to its community, would want to celebrate its greatest local hero. But some are more obvious choices for such an honour than others, as we will see.
LaGuardia
Naming airports after celebrities is not a new idea. The name might not sound familiar to us now, but Fiorello LaGuardia was the New York City mayor who championed the construction of the airport in the 1930’s, and when he died in 1947, the airport was named after him.
John Wayne and Bob Hope
Having an airport named after you is a great honour – so much so that it can cause a strange kind of rivalry to develop. In 1979 the Orange County Airport was re-named after John Wayne, who had just died. His fellow actor Bob Hope was said to be jealous that Wayne had an airport named after him, and he didn’t. If only he could have known that, in 2003, after his death, he would be honoured with his very own Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, where he kept his personal aeroplane.
John F Kennedy
Often the death of an admired person will result in an immediate name change for an airport. Idlewild Airport in New York changed its name to John F Kennedy just a month after he was assassinated.
John Lennon
However it’s not always an instant occurrence. Liverpool waited 22 years after John Lennon’s death before they renamed Liverpool airport in his honour. He is hailed as one of the city’s greatest sons and the move was a popular choice.
George Best
But sometimes the renaming of an airport can cause controversy. George Best was a widely respected footballer, but his troubled private life led people in Belfast to question whether a better figure could have been chosen to represent their city. For now though, Belfast has George Best airport.
Ronald Reagan
At other times the naming of an airport can cause a fuss for political reasons, such as when Washington’s National airport was renamed after Ronald Reagan in 1998.
Genghis Khan
But it could be even worse. In 2006, Mongolia’s Buyant Ukhaa Airport changed its name to Genghis Khan. This was done without much publicity, so passengers at the time were a little surprised to hear the announcement that they would be touching down at the airport of a bloodthirsty tyrant who created terror across 2 continents. It certainly wouldn’t encourage me to pay a visit, anyway!
Robin Hood
So we’ve established that you don’t have to be dead to have an airport named after you, and you don’t necessarily have to be very great or good either. And it seems that you don’t even have to be real to achieve this honour. Obviously there was a lack of local heroes around in Doncaster and Sheffield, since they chose the legendary figure of Robin Hood to represent the airport. And wasn’t he supposed to be from Nottingham, anyway? That’s really scraping the barrel.
We’d like to hear from you?
If you could name an airport after someone, who would it be? Please leave your comments below.
Picture Credits
Fiorello LaGuardia – Library of Congress – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fiorello_LaGuardia.jpg
John Wayne – Roger Gaw – http://nerdiest-kids.com/top-ten-badasses-of-cinema/
Bob Hope – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bob_Hope_in_The_Ghost_Breakers_trailer.JPG
John F Kennedy – Library of Congress – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_F_Kennedy.jpg
John Lennon – Roy Kerwood – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:JohnLennonpeace.jpg
George Best – Expo67 – http://expo67-cavestones.blogspot.com/2009_01_01_archive.html
Ronald Reagan – Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Official_Portrait_of_President_Reagan_1981.jpg
Genghis Khan – Abdullah – http://www.p0ach.com/2009/05/04/unawakened-earthlingsgenghis-khan/
Robin Hood – Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Robin_Hood_Memorial.jpg