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The History of the Airport
Newcastle Airport is a major success story with a growing number of scheduled and holiday charter flights to domestic and worldwide destinations Newcastle Airport started life on the 26th July 1935, it had a grass runway, a club house, a hangar, workshops, an ambulance room, a hose for petrol and a garage. It cost just £35,000. The first scheduled service calling here flew between Croydon and Perth, Scotland, operated by North Eastern Airways using Rapide and 8-seater Airspeed Envoy aircraft.
It had its first appointed Airport manager in 1952, Jim Denyers number-one aim was to put Newcastle on the map. By mid-1954 scheduled services totalled some 35 per week, but it was the 1960s when people were heading off by air on sunshine holidays that brought the boom in passenger numbers. As well as meeting their needs, the Airport was now carving out a major role in encouraging business and development in the North East of England.
Passengers
Number of passengers: About 4 1/2 million
Number of terminals: 1
Number of runways: 1
Number of destinations: Over 70
It was in April 1963 as a co-ordinated response that the leading local authorities in the region came together to form the North East Regional Airport Committee. They appointed a firm of consulting engineers to draw up development plans and 18 months later work began. A new runway and apron was developed, regraded, strengthened and extended to its present length of 2332 metres.
By the mid 70s however the airport terminal building was now bulging and in 1978, the Government, in its White Paper on Airports Policy, designated Newcastle Airport as a Category B regional airport. Extension plans were put into action and building work started in July 1980. By the time Jim Denyer retired in 1989, 1.6 million passengers passed through Newcastle Airport. Such success required an additional 2400 surface-level car-parking spaces and the extended and improved terminal building which was opened on the 26th May 1994 by the Princess Royal.
Passenger numbers continued to grow and in October 2000, a major extension to the terminal was officially opened by Mr Tony Blair, the Prime Minister and on 4th May 2001 a further major step for the development of Newcastle Airport was taken by the 7 local authority shareholders when 49% of the shares in the Airport Company were sold to Copenhagen Airport, thus ensuring a truly international Newcastle Airport.
Today Newcastle Airport is one of the UK's most successful Airports!
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