Newcastle airport History

Newcastle Airport was opened in 1935 costing a total of £35,000 to construct. Post-war the airport was developed and by the early 1950's over 5,000 people annually were using the airport. The 1960's were a good period for the airport as it went from strength to strength and benefited from the package holiday boom at the time. Due to the increase of passenger throughput upgrades were made to the runway and control tower.

The 1970's saw considerable change at Newcastle Airport as its status was upgraded to Regional by consent of the government which saw American flights begin to arrive. Naturally this increase in service led to larger passenger figures and by the late 70's Newcastle Airport could boast 700,000 passengers annually.

The increase in passenger numbers led to more development by the turn of the decade and as a result passenger number continued to ascend to an impressive 1.24 million annually.

The next significant upgrade to Newcastle Airport was undertaken in 1994 to cope with the increase in passenger numbers which has been continually added to over the years meaning that at present the airport is capable of handling 5 million passengers per year.