Dundee Airport - History

History

The airport was opened in 1963 on land reclaimed from the Firth of Tay. Originally it had a 900 m (2,953 ft) grass runway. The first scheduled air service began on July 5, 1966, with a service to Glasgow. A fortnight later a feeder service was added for Turnhouse and Prestwick. The service was stopped on October 31, 1967 after British Eagle reported substantial £10,000 losses. Around this time the control of Dundee City Council changed from Labour to Conservative and the airport was closed and land used by Dundee University as playing fields. When control of the Council changed back again to Labour the airport was reopened.

The grass runway was replaced by a 1,100 m (3,609 ft) long tarmac runway in the 1970s and extended to the current length of 1,400 m (4,593 ft) in the 1990s. The airport was granted "customs airport" status on April 16, 1982 and runway edge lights were added in 1983. The current terminal was opened in 1997 by the then EU transport commissioner Neil Kinnock.

Ramsay World Travel from Dundee also operate a weekly charter to Jersey in the Summer months in association with Lewis's Holidays, and in 1996 they ran a series of weekly flights to Majorca using BAe 146 aircraft which had to land in Bournemouth/Southend to re-fuel.

Business Air and later British Midland Regional operated flights from Dundee to Manchester Airport in the 90's, a route that was brought back by Eastern Airways for only a few months, in 2002.

After the departure of Business Air, the airport was left without any scheduled services for almost a year until April 1999, when ScotAirways introduced flights to London City Airport. ScotAirways operated under the CityJet for Air France banner from 2007 to September 2009. In September 2009 CityJet became a commercial brand within the AFKL Group. Flights are now announced as CityJet and not Air France. The Dundee to London City route was flown by Dornier 328 aircraft leased from ScotAirways, until January 2011 when ScotAirways' near 12 year association with the route came to an end, as CityJet announced the route would be operated on a reduced frequency by its own Fokker 50 aircraft. This change has caused concern within the business community for the continued viability of the route. Following the purchase of ScotAirways by Loganair in July 2011, the Dornier 328 has since been reinstated on the route.

On May 29, 2007, services to Birmingham International Airport and George Best Belfast City Airport operated by FlyWhoosh, using ATR 42 aircraft started. The company which was effectively only a ticket agent, used the services of a Polish airline White Eagle Aviation (WEA) which based an aircraft at Dundee Airport. In December 2007 these services ceased, amid some confusion as to what exactly caused the termination of services. On March 3, 2008, Loganair announced that it would recommence the routes which were operated by FlyWhoosh in May 2008 under the new Flybe franchise. Three weekday return flights have since been introduced between Dundee and Birmingham, with one return flight on Sundays and a daily weekday return flight between Dundee and Belfast City Airport, with one return flight also operating on Sundays. The company uses Saab 340 aircraft on these routes.

Tayside Aviation operates a training facility and engineering workshop at the airport. This was supplemented by a maintenance hangar built in 1982. Their operations form the substantial part of the light aircraft movements at the airport, being, among other things, sole contractor to the Air Cadet Organisation to provide Light Aircraft Flying Scholarships to RAF cadets.