What do you have planned between now and 2040? However ambitious your answer might be, it probably doesn’t rival Belfast City Airport’s Master Plan 2040, which has set out a huge raft of improvements at the Northern Irish capital’s major air hub.
The airport is eyeing upgrades worth a whopping £200 million. Although the site is not due to be extended, there are plans for new airfield infrastructure and expanded passenger facilities.
Belfast City Airport has also confirmed that it’ll ask Stormont (the Northern Ireland Assembly) for permission to increase its flight operations by 60 minutes. This will mean it can run flights for 16 hours per day, with services in operation until 10.30pm. BHD currently has a ‘no-fly’ policy from midnight until 6.30am, which will remain unchanged.
The hub will also propose increasing its cap for annual flight movements from 48,000 to 61,000. Belfast City mainly flies within the UK, though it does also serve destinations such as Amsterdam and Majorca.
The entire £200m overhaul will double the airport’s number of employees, creating 1,100 jobs and supporting 23,000 across Northern Ireland. The airport has also said it will increase its annual number of passengers from 2.4 million to seven million, and that the glow-up will generate £1.7 billion annually.
In addition to all of this, Matthew Hall, chief executive of Belfast City Airport, has said that the airport has teamed up with Translink to explore the possibilities for a new service connecting the airport to Belfast City Centre.
Hall said: ‘Delivery of our Master Plan is a once-in-a-generation opportunity that will benefit passengers and businesses across the region, whilst delivering key elements of the Northern Ireland Executive’s Programme for Government.
‘Every airport on the island of Ireland will need to play its part in meeting future demand, and this draft Master Plan exemplifies Belfast City Airport’s commitment to doing so, while reinforcing our position as a vital economic enabler for the region.’
Psst! Did you hear? British Airways is officially the best airline in Europe.
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