Cardiff Airport History

The history of Cardiff Airport extends back over 60 years to the early 1940's when land in the Vale of Glamorgan was requisitioned as a training base for Spitfire

The commercial potential of Cardiff Airport was not recognised until the 1950's when Aer Lingus started a service to Dublin in 1952.

Over the next 10 years Cardiff Airport was developed to accommodate flights to France, Belfast and Cork . The increase in holiday charter led to passenger numbers at Cardiff Airport exceeding 100,000 in 1962.

In 1965 further development of the Cardiff Airport site enabled the airport to accommodate wide bodied aircraft..

In the late 1980's the British Airways Maintenance facility moved to Cardiff Airport The maintenance hangar is one of the largest in the world and provides heavy airframe and engineering maintenance for the British Airways fleet and third party carriers.

In 1992 passenger numbers at Cardiff Airport soared by 22% to almost 750,000.

A series of major expansion projects at Cardiff Airport, designed to boost the capacity of the Terminal Building, commenced in early 1993. The projects included re-development of the landside forecourt area, expansion and modernisation of the International Departures Lounge, plus modification of the roadway access to the Terminal.

In 1994, Cardiff Airport celebrated attaining the 1 million passenger mark for the first time in it's history.

In 1995 ownership of Cardiff Airport passed to TBI plc who have helped maintain the rapid growth of Cardiff Airport.

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