In 2015 this major renovation of Gran Canaria airport was completed. The airport was an official alternative (emergency) landing site for the NASA Space Shuttle, before the ending of the Space Shuttle programme in July 2011.Īs of 2011, there was a programme to expand the airport, extending the terminal and creating a new runway. Ryanair presently operates 30 routes from Gran Canaria. In addition to Gran Canaria these include Lanzarote and Tenerife South. In December 2010, low-cost carrier Ryanair announced the opening of 3 new bases on the Canary Islands. In October 1991, the terminal was enlarged with improved facilities so it could handle more passengers. On 18 February 1988, Binter Canarias announced that the airline's main base was to be established at Gran Canaria. During this time, a second runway was being built and this was completed in 1980. In 1970, work began on the current passenger terminal which opened in March 1973. In 1966 a new control tower was completed, replacing the old control tower that was constructed in 1946. In 1964, a transmission station was built. This included new parking spaces, enlargement of the terminal and the provision of a visual approach slope indicator system. In 1963, improvements to the airport were made. In 1948 a runway was built, which was completed and fully tarmacked in 1957. In 1946, the old passenger terminal opened, which took two years to build. In its existence, the airport has become the largest gateway into the Canary Islands, as well as the largest in terms of passenger and cargo operations, although the island of Tenerife has higher passenger numbers overall between the two airports located on the island. The airport opened on 7 April 1930, after King Alfonso XIII signed a royal order announcing that the military air force installations on the Bay of Gando would become a civilian airfield. This also included stopovers in Málaga, Alicante and Barcelona. In 1919, Frenchman Pierre George Latécoère was granted clearance from the French & Spanish governments to establish an airline route between Toulouse and Casablanca. JSTOR ( July 2019) ( Learn how and when to remove this template message).Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.įind sources: 'Gran Canaria Airport' – news Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section. This section needs additional citations for verification. Other airlines use it as a base to operate charter flights to Cape Verde and Gambia ( TUI fly Deutschland and TUI fly Nordic), but only in the winter. It serves as base for Binter Canarias, Canaryfly, Ryanair, Norwegian Air Shuttle and Vueling. Gran Canaria Airport is an important hub for passengers travelling to West Africa (Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal, Cape Verde, among others), and to the Atlantic Isles of Madeira and the Azores. In 2014 it handled over 10.3 million passengers, ranking 1st in the Canary Islands and 5th in Spain by passenger traffic. The airport is located in the eastern part of Gran Canaria on the Bay of Gando (Bahía de Gando), 19 km (12 mi) to the south of Las Palmas, and 25 km (16 mi) from the popular tourist areas in the south. It also ranks first of the Canary Islands in all three categories, although the island of Tenerife has higher passenger numbers overall if statistics from the two airports located on the island are combined. It is an important airport within the Spanish air-transport network (owned and managed by a public enterprise, AENA), as it holds the sixth position in terms of passengers, and fifth in terms of operations and cargo transported. Gran Canaria Airport ( IATA: LPA, ICAO: GCLP), sometimes also known as Gando Airport ( Spanish: Aeropuerto de Gran Canaria), is a passenger and freight airport on the island of Gran Canaria.

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