Campbeltown Airport (Scottish Gaelic: Port-adhair Cheann Loch Chille Chiarain) (IATA: CAL, ICAO: EGEC) is located at Machrihanish, 3 NM (5.6 km; 3.5 mi) west of Campbeltown, near the tip of the Kintyre peninsula in Argyll and Bute on the west coast of Scotland. It is still owned by the Ministry of Defence, under a 'care and maintenance' programme, but a part of the airport is now run as a commercial enterprise by the Highlands and Islands Airports Limited, a company under the control of the Scottish Government.
The airport was formerly known as RAF Machrihanish (after the village of Machrihanish) and hosted squadrons of the Royal Air Force and other NATO air forces as well as the United States Marine Corps. It is now called MoD Machrihanish. The airport is at a strategic point near the Irish Sea, and was used to guard the entrance to the Firth of Clyde where US nuclear submarines were based at Holy Loch and where Royal Navy Trident missile submarines are still based at HMNB Clyde (Faslane Naval Base).
Permanent full time military operations ceased in 1997.
At 3,049 m (10,003 ft), the original runway 11/29 at Campbeltown Airport is the longest of any public airport in Scotland. It was built between 1960 and 1962 as part of a major reconstruction for the airport's role in NATO.
Campbeltown Aerodrome has a CAA Ordinary Licence (Number P808) that allows flights for the public transport of passengers or for flying instruction as authorised by the licensee (Highlands & Islands Airports Limited)
Read more about Campbeltown Airport: Scheduled Services
Famous quotes containing the word airport:
“Airplanes are invariably scheduled to depart at such times as 7:54, 9:21 or 11:37. This extreme specificity has the effect on the novice of instilling in him the twin beliefs that he will be arriving at 10:08, 1:43 or 4:22, and that he should get to the airport on time. These beliefs are not only erroneous but actually unhealthy.”
—Fran Lebowitz (b. 1950)