COVENTRY AIRPORT

'Coventry Airport' is located about 7 km south of Coventry city centre, in the village of Baginton, Warwickshire, England, and about 1 km outside Coventry boundaries. Coventry airport is a main hub for Thomsonfly.com, part of the TUI Group. The airport is owned by the CAFCO-C, and is currently waiting for the results of a Public Local Inquiry to build a permanent terminal and passenger facilities to serve up to 2 million people per annum.
Coventry Aerodrome has a CAA Ordinary Licence (Number P834) that allows flights for the public transport of passengers or for flying instruction as authorised by the licensee (West Midlands International Airport Limited trading as Coventry Airport)^[1].

Contents

History

Expansion Plans

Airlines and Destinations

Scheduled

Gallery

References

External links

History

In 1933 Coventry City Council decided to develop a civic airport on land that they owned to the south-east of the city in Baginton. Coventry Airport was opened in 1936. Armstrong Whitworth, aircraft manufacturers based nearby at Whitley Aerodrome, built an aircraft factory on the airport site soon afterwards.
During World War II the airport was utilised as a fighter station, RAF Baginton, by the Royal Air Force, and was damaged in the Luftwaffe bombing of Coventry in 1940.
After the war the airport was returned to civil use as a passenger and freight terminal. In the 1950s Jersey Airlines operated De Havilland Heron and Douglas Dakota aircraft on services to the Channel Islands.^[2] In the 1960s British United Airways flew Dakota, Carvair (which also carried passengers' cars) and Handley Page Heralds to the Channel Islands.^[3]
In late-1980s, Coventry City Council sold the airport lease to Air Atlantique.
From 5 November 1994 to 4 May 1995 live veal calves were exported from Coventry Airport to Amsterdam for distribution across Europe, and the locality became a focus for animal rights demonstrators. On 21 December 1994 a Boeing 737 used for exporting calves crashed in Willenhall Wood, Willenhall, Coventry near to houses, on approach to the airport in bad weather, and all 5 people on board were killed.^[4] The aircraft was owned by Air Algerie and on lease to Phoenix Aviation. On 1 February 1995, Jill Phipps, an animal rights activist aged 31 years, was crushed to death under the wheels of a lorry carrying live veal calves into Coventry Airport.^[5]
In February 2004 the lease was sold to TUI AG, who started scheduled flights from the airport in March 2004 under the brand Thomsonfly. The new service was controversial because it operated out of new temporary passenger facilities built without planning permission. Warwick District Council lost a court action in which it attempted to get an injunction against Thomsonfly. The result was that the service was allowed to continue.^[6]

Expansion Plans

A second Public Local Inquiry to determine a planning application for a 10,000 m² permanent modern terminal for up to 2 million passengers per annum ended in July 2006. The result of the enquiry was a rejection of the plan, as announced on Friday 15 June 2007.^[7] Coventry Airport is located only 21 km (13 miles) from Birmingham International Airport.

Airlines and Destinations

Scheduled

★ Thomsonfly (Alicante, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Faro, Grenoble, Ibiza, Jersey, Málaga, Palma, Paris-Orly, Pisa, Salzburg, Valencia)

★ Wizzair (Katowice)

Gallery

References

1. Civil Aviation Authority Aerodrome Ordinary Licences
2. Baginton (Coventry) airport History-page 2
3. Baginton-Coventry airport
4. Aeroplane crash dead remembered
5. Live exports that sparked protests
6. Council drops airport court case
7. Passenger terminal plan rejected

External links

★ Coventry Airport homepage