Air
Gibraltar Airport is the territory's only airport. It is situated very close to the border with Spain. The road to Spain crosses the runway, requiring the road to be closed each time an aircraft lands or takes off. Scheduled civilian passenger flights are operated by EasyJet, British Airways and Monarch Airlines.
Following an agreement signed in Córdoba between the Governments of the United Kingdom, Spain and Gibraltar in September 2006, the use of Gibraltar Airport by both Gibraltarian and Spanish services was agreed. Gibraltar Airport will be adapted to have an entrance from Spain (as well as Gibraltar), in a similar manner to Basel and Geneva airports (which are also adjacent to borders).
Iberia commenced direct flights between Madrid and Gibraltar on 16 December 2006 with GB Airways following on 1 May 2007. However, GB Airways discontinued their Madrid service on 30 September 2007 and Iberia subsequently considered using smaller aircraft, possibly from its Air Nostrum regional partner — indicating that neither operator may have been able to fill their planes with passengers. Iberia eventually withdrew its service in September 2008. In 2009 Ándalus Líneas Aéreas started flights between Gibraltar and Madrid. However, on 13 August 2010, the airline ceased operations because the Spanish aviation authorities withdrew their licence.
Following the takeover by EasyJet, GB Airways dropped its direct Gibraltar–Heathrow service on 28 October 2006 despite apparently remaining popular. The reason cited by GB Airways was the "convenience of" concentrating all its London services onto a single hub at Gatwick. Later, a sale of several of GB Airways' Heathrow slots is believed to have netted GB Airways with up to £80m. In late 2007 GB Airways was bought by EasyJet (and thus ceased to be a British Airways franchise partner); all flights were rebranded as EasyJet in 2008.
Flights are available from Gibraltar to London Heathrow, London Gatwick, London Luton, Liverpool and Manchester airports. As from 2012 bmibaby offer a service to East Midlands airport.
Read more about this topic: Transport In Gibraltar
Famous quotes containing the word air:
“He who will one day teach men to fly will have displaced all boundary stones; the boundary stones themselves will fly up into the air to him, and he will rebaptize the earth—as “the weightless.””
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
“... anybody is as their land and air is. Anybody is as the sky is low or high, the air heavy or clear and anybody is as there is wind or no wind there. It is that which makes them and the arts they make and the work they do and the way they eat and the way they drink and the way they learn and everything.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“Many divorces are not really the result of irreparable injury but involve, instead, a desire on the part of the man or woman to shatter the setup, start out from scratch alone, and make life work for them all over again. They want the risk of disaster, want to touch bottom, see where bottom is, and, coming up, to breathe the air with relief and relish again.”
—Edward Hoagland (b. 1932)