Antwerp International Airport
Antwerp International Airport
Antwerp International Airport
(IATA: ANR, ICAO: EBAW) is a small international airport serving Antwerp,
Belgium. Located 2.9 nautical miles (5.4 km; 3.3 mi) south of the city, it is
used for some scheduled and charter flights as well as business and general
aviation and served 273,130 passengers in 2017.
History
Antwerp Airport (2019)
After the first flying events at
the Wilrijkse Plein, work on a proper airport for the city started in 1921,
under the impulse of pioneer aviator Jan Olieslagers and others. Sabena
operated passenger services from 1924 from an old railway carriage as the only
passenger infrastructure. A proper airport terminal was ordered by minister
Maurice Lippens and inaugurated in 1930.
The airport was home to the
aircraft factory Stampe et Vertongen until its demise after WW2.
During World War II the airport
was used by the Luftwaffe, and also served the nearby Erla aircraft factory.
After the German retreat in 1944, it saw brief use by Allied air forces, who
called it Advanced Landing Ground B-70.
BMI Regional announced the
termination of their route to Manchester for 29 November 2013. The scheduled
routes to London-City and Manchester accounted for 63% of the passenger traffic
in 2011.
Antwerp Airport was home to VLM
Airlines from end 2014, since independency from CityJet. VLM was offering
flights from Antwerp to Hamburg and Friedrichshafen and was flying on behalf of
CityJet on the route Antwerp - London City. However, the airline declared
bankruptcy on 22 June 2016 due to cancellations of ACMI contracts by People's.
Due to VLM's demise, their ACMI customer CityJet handed over the operations of
VLM's former service from London City Airport to Antwerp to Danish Air
Transport. The Antwerp to Hamburg service was taken over by Chalair Aviation
but has been discontinued.
On 6 August 2018, the revived VLM
Airlines announced the termination of five scheduled routes with another new
one not commencing in the coming weeks and that instead it would focus on
charter operations. On 31 August 2018 however, VLM Airlines announced the
immediate stop of all of their operations from Antwerp.
Facilities
The airport consists of one small
passenger terminal with basic facilities including service desks and a
restaurant. The apron features ten stands for smaller aircraft such as the
Fokker 50. As there are no jet bridges, walk-boarding is used. Due to its short
runway length only just over 1,500 m (4,900 ft), it is not possible to operate
aircraft larger than the Boeing 737 at the airport.
Operator
The airport was operated by the
Department of Mobility and Public Works of the Flemish Government which made an
agreement with the French engineering group Egis Group to operate it starting
2014 for a duration of 25 years.
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