GLASGOW AIRPORT GUIDE (GLA)

QUICK FACTS Name: Glasgow International Airport IATA Code: GLA ICAO Code: EGPF Opened: 1932 Terminals: 2 Runways: 2 Destinations served:80+ Passengers: 7m (2009)

HISTORY

The Glasgow Airport parking facilities belong to a flight hub that has an impressive history extending as far back as 1932; seven years before the outbreak of World War II. The very conception of the airport began when the Royal Air Force moved its 602 Squadron of Wapiti IIA fighter jet aircraft to Abbotsinch (located between White Cart Water and Black Car Water in Renfrewshire), a site considered suitable for general air plane traffic and landings. Although the site for the Glasgow Airport parking and terminal building originally served as a landing and parking site for the Royal Air Force’s Auxiliary Air Force, it was only four years later, in 1936, that the RAF set up a station headquarters there.
 
Towards the end of 1943 and as World War II was drawing to a close, the airfield at Abbotsinch became a naval base after it was given over to the complete command of the Royal Navy. The following decade, the 1950s, saw the airfield continue its main function of storing and servicing fighter jet squadrons and larger aircraft, however, by 1963, the Royal Navy vacated the site. It was in the 1960s that real development began and, at the hands of the Glasgow Corporation, the site at Abbotsinch saw a transformation from airfield to airport. The new Glasgow airport parking and terminal building design and layout was put forward by Basil Spence and £4.2 million later in 1966, it became a design realized.
 
The flight hub and Glasgow Airport parking facilities were officially opened to the public by Queen Elizabeth II herself on the 27th June 1966. The first commercial airline to operate its services at the airport was the De Havilland Comet, a British European Airways aircraft. The following decades saw the expansion and diversification of the Glasgow Airport parking facilities and flight schedule, although it was mostly restricted to domestic and European destinations while the airport at Prestwick had monopoly over the international air traffic. In 1975, the Glasgow Airport company became the property of the British Airports Authority, and subsequent to the dissolution of the Prestwick Airport towards the end of the 1980s, enjoyed the complete lifting of all flight restrictions.
 
Nowadays - many development initiatives and rejuvenation projects later - the Glasgow airport has become the fourth largest in the United Kingdom and serves as a gateway to domestic and international destinations for more than seven million passengers every year.