Belfast city airport

Belfast city airport is also knownas George best Belfast city airport. It is located 2 miles from the Belfast city center and has a single runway operation. In 1983, the commercial operation of airport started. In 2009, airport has a handling capacity of 2.6 million passengers. Among UK airports, Belfast airport is one of the airports whose passenger handling capacity increased through out the year 2009. One of the largest operators in Belfast city is Flybe and in 1993, it began its operation at the airport. In 1937, Belfast airport was developed by shorts. During 1938-1939, the airport became the civilian airport of Belfast. For commercial flights, it was opened in 1983 and the airfield opened as a Belfast Harbour airport.

The airport was sold in 2003 to Spanish Company Ferrovial for £35 million by bombardier (major capital investment). The airport was resold by Ferrovial to ABN amro for £132.5 million, in September 2008. On 30th October 2007, the 23rd base at the Belfast city airport was established by Ryanair. It has been announced by Ryanair that all of its services to Belfast-city base will be lost on 31st October, 2010. This revealed that airport has to face loss of 8000 passengers and 5 routes. This all was as a result of delay in the runway extension project. In 2009, the passenger handling capacity of airport was raised to 2,621,763.

As the location of Belfast city airport is near residential areas, so it always became the focus of public debates due to noise pollution. In order to solve this problem, a noise management strategy was developed by airport. In order to expand the traffic on airport, the airport has applied for removal of restriction on seats (limited), which was the part of 1997 planning agreement. During 2006 coalition against Belfast city airport expansion was held by considering problems of residential.