La Coruna Airport

The La Coruña International Airport (IATA: LCG, ICAO: LECO) (officially A Coruña International Airport, formerly known as Alvedro Airport), is a Spanish Aena airport that is located in the municipality of Culleredo, bordering on La Coruña and 8 km from the center of the city of La Coruna.

History

The first airport project for the city of La Coruña was approved by the Council of Ministers on September 11, 1953 and declared the work to be carried out urgently. If there is no project prior to this, it is partly due to the orographic and meteorological difficulties of the area, and the impulse given to the construction of the Lavacolla Airport in Santiago de Compostela, which was inaugurated in 1935.

This first project contemplates the construction of an airfield on the Alvedro plateau (Culleredo), which is considered sufficient for the construction of a type C aerodrome. Subsequent projects include the construction of a parking area and a passenger terminal.

In 1961, a radio beacon and the generator sets of the power plant were installed, and in 1962 the terminal building was built, the signaling of the runway was made and the terminal area was urbanized. While these works are being carried out, the Provincial Council of La Coruña is in charge of building the road that will link the airport with La Coruña and Santiago, and the Flight Protection Directorate completes the airport navigation aid facilities. In 1963 a service building was built.

Once these works were finished, in May 1963 the airport was opened to national civil air traffic. The inauguration takes place on May 25 of that year, the day the first commercial plane arrives from Madrid. This first flight is operated by the Aviaco company.

In 1964, and for only one year, the Vigo-La Coruña-Santander-San Sebastián-Barcelona line operated with Convair 400 aircraft. It was not until 1971 that this line was resumed, with the same modest result. At the end of the 60s, the first charter flights arrived, from Switzerland and London.

On August 13, 1973, the plane crash of Aviaco Flight 118 occurred in the nearby town of Montrove, in which all the passengers and crew died, when the plane attempted to land. The causes of the accident were human, as the pilots got off the approach minimum on a day when there was thick fog at the time of the fatal landing.

Check-in desks at La Coruña Airport.

At the end of the 1970s, in 1979, with the opening of a customs office at the airport itself, it was enabled for passenger and merchandise customs operations.

In 1989 and 1990, the south and north headwaters were expanded respectively, and a one degree and twelve minute turn was made in the direction of the runway. A PAPI visual landing aid system and an ILS instrument aid system are also installed. On April 28, 1990, it reopened to air traffic and on May 11 regular flights with Madrid and Barcelona with the airline Aviaco resumed.

In 1994 there were already 259,000 passengers flying in a year thanks to La Coruña Airport, and this growth is what advised the construction of the new terminal building, its urbanization and the expansion of the aircraft parking area. These new facilities were inaugurated on December 19, 1995.

Gangways were installed and, in 2001, the cargo terminal building came into service. The airport currently has a single runway (21-03) with a length of 1,940 meters and a capacity of 12 movements per hour. On March 22, 2011, Aena awarded the Joint Venture: Azvi S.A., Puentes y Calzadas Infraestructuras S.L.U. and Ciser Obras y Servicios S. L. the extension of the runway to 2482 meters ^{[citation required]}, which will make it possible to take off and land fully loaded A-320 type aircraft.

In March 2009, construction of the provisional car park was completed, while the remodeling works on the main car park lasted. It was connected to the terminal by a free bus service. This infrastructure is currently abandoned. In November 2010 these works were completed and the main car park now has 1,800 spaces in its original location, in front of the Terminal. These works cost about 34 million euros. Works are also being carried out to expand the terminal and for new road accesses, and today it has a new VIP business room.

In 2011, runway 04 at the A Coruña airport changed to runway 03, just as runway 22 became runway 21.

On June 25, 2015, the runway was extended 400 meters to 2,340 paved meters, with an additional turn pad.

Infrastructures

View of the civil aircraft platform of La Coruña Airport. We see an EasyJet A319, an Iberia A320, a Air Europa B737-800 and a TAG Spain G550.

La Coruña Airport has a completely paved runway of 2340 meters with a 35°/215° orientation, resulting in runways 03 and 21. This last head has VOR-DME, NDB and ILS CAT instrument aids II, while runway 03 despite the airlines' insistence that a VOR be installed ^{[citation required]} as it is not possible to use an ILS for the proximity of a high elevation mountain that leaves behind the decision point, the headland does not have any instrumental aid, so that the approaches to said runway are completely visual. On June 25, 2015, the runway was extended by 400 meters to 2,340 paved meters, allowing the operation of fully loaded Airbus A320 type aircraft, or larger models used on transoceanic flights with a certain load penalty, such as Airbus A330 or Boeing 777^{[citation needed]}. The airport had, until the runway expansion, the second smallest of the Spanish peninsular airports after the runway of the San Sebastián airport.

The airport has a terminal opened in 1996, which has a cafeteria, shops and, of course, the check-in and boarding area, with 6 boarding gates in total.

The airport car park finished its expansion works in November 2010, which implies a considerable increase in vehicle spaces, almost 2,000, distributed over four levels (one at ground level and three underground floors). While the expansion works lasted, the provisional public car park P3 was in service, located at the roundabout accessing the airport facilities, some seven hundred meters from the terminal and connected to it by a shuttle bus, which provided a free service. continuously throughout the flight schedule.

Other services that the airport has are a small fire station, a bus to transport passengers to the planes that are on the runway and a tourist station for plane flights through the city of La Coruña.

Communications

Currently, the airport can be accessed from the N-550, a road that connects La Coruña and Tuy, about 7 kilometers from the city center. The airport is also connected to the AC-14 motorway, which links the Tercera Ronda de La Coruña with the A-6 motorway (Northwest motorway, Madrid-La Coruña) through a 2 km long connecting branch. It is planned to connect the AP-9 motorway (La Coruña-Portugal) at the height of the Burgo service station, with the header 21 of the airport.

It has an intercity bus connection with the municipalities of La Coruña, Bergondo, Cambre, Sada, Oleiros and Culleredo (lines A4, D3, D5 and D6). It makes stops, among others, in front of the bus and railway stations of La Coruña, both located about 9 km away from the airport.

Regarding rail connections, 2 km from the airport facilities is the El Burgo-Santiago station with connections to Ferrol, Lugo, Betanzos and Monforte de Lemos, among other towns.

Airlines and destinations

Airlines

EasyJet Airbus A319 aligning track 03 to take off Alvedro

Currently 5 airlines operate at La Coruña airport:

Regular airlines:

• Spain: Air Europa
• Spain: Binter Canarias
• Spain: Iberia LAE

Low-cost airlines:

• Spain: Volotea
• Spain: Vueling Airlines
• United Kingdom: Easyjet

Air taxi airlines:

• Luxembourg: TAG Aviation
• Spain: Gestair (also handling operator)
• Spain: Airnor (no base)
• Germany: ProAir Aviation GmbH (no basis)

Pilot school/aerial work:

• Spain: Northwest Aeroflota

Iberia Airbus A321 at La Coruña Airport.

Destinations

Nationals

City	Airport name	Airlines	Aircraft	Weekly frequency
SpainSpain
Barcelona	Airport Josep Tarradellas Barcelona-El Prat	Vueling	A320	L M X J V S D
Bilbao	Bilbao Airport	Volotea	A319	L M X J V S D
Gran Canaria	Airport of Gran Canaria	Binter Canarias	E195-E2	L M X J V S D
Madrid	Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport	Air Europa Iberia/Air Nostrum	B737-800 A319/A320/CRJ-1000	L M X J V S D L M X J V S D
Malaga	Malaga Airport	Volotea	A319	L M X J V S D
Menorca	Menorca Airport	Volotea (seasonal)	A319	L M X J V S D
Valencia	Airport of Valencia	Volotea	A319	L M X J V S D

International

Cities by country	Airport name	Airlines	Aircraft	Weekly frequency
Europe
France
Paris	Paris Orly Airport	Vueling	A320	L X J V S D
United Kingdom
London	London Gatwick Airport	Vueling	A320	L M X J V S D
Netherlands
Amsterdam	Amsterdam Airport	Easyjet	A320	(item April 2023)
Switzerland
Geneva	Geneva Airport	Easyjet	A320	(item April 2023)
Italy
Milan	Milan-Malpensa Airport	Easyjet	A320	(item April 2023)

Seasonal flights also operate. It is currently the second airport of the 3 in Galicia for passenger traffic and aircraft movement and the third for freight transport.^{[citation required]} It is also base of a helicopter (EC-MCR) of the Maritime Safety and Rescue Society (SASEMAR), of the Air Unit of the Directorate General of Traffic and of the Air Service of the Civil Guard in Galicia, in addition to the AFN fleet (dedicated to the teaching of pilots and cabin crew) as well as some private aircraft. At the time, when the Air Transportable Brigade (BRILAT) was stationed in La Coruña, the movement of Air Force transport planes at this airport was important, although it is still used by Navy planes for exercises with the base's ships Ferrol Navy, La Coruña and also by planes of the 45th Armed Forces Group for VIP transport. A year and a half ago, the extension of the runway began by 400 meters, so that planes larger than the Airbus A320, Boeing B737 or Boeing B717 that currently land can land, or at least, do so with a greater margin of safety. The largest planes that landed at this airport were a Boeing 777-200 with the Italian team Juventus from Turin and an Airbus A310 with the Turkish Tranbzosport expedition, in the Champions League. Also, the expansion of the passenger terminal has been awarded to begin in September 2012, which will be able to serve 2.5 million passengers, compared to the current 1.3 million. The new terminal will double the current area, going from 9,000 square meters to 18,000. It will have 12 boarding gates, 4 of them with walkways (finger), compared to the current 6 gates, of which only 2 have finger. The works on both the terminal and the runway are expected to end in April 2014 (As of January 8, 2019, the works on the terminal have not yet begun). A link with the Madrid-La Coruña Northwest Highway has been completed and another is close to being made with the center of La Coruña through the III Ronda, with another planned in the future with the AP-9 La Coruña-Tuy.

Former operators

A Spanair MD-83 with the colors of the Star Alliance alliance.

Since the inauguration of the airport until today, there have been various airlines that have operated at the aerodrome, having a list of the former operators, which for one reason or another have left:

• Aviaco: absorbed by Iberia in 1999 and transfer all its flights to it.
• AeBal: converted into Quantum Air and later broken.
• Clickair: merged with Vueling Airlines in 2008 and currently operating under that name.
• Spanair: broken to 27 January 2012, deleting all your flights.
• easyJet: deleted all flights to the airport in December 2012.
• TAP Express: deleted all flights to the airport in October 2018.

Traffic

Evolution of traffic

Destinations with the highest demand

Position	City	Passengers 2019	Difference 2018-2019
1	Madrid	679.386	5.37 %
2	Barcelona	319.926	10.51 %
3	London	112.155	0.11 %
4	Sevilla	88.127	17.6%
5	Bilbao	31.912
6	Valencia	31.897	17.34 %
7	Palma de Mallorca	27.189	36.22%
8	Malaga	18.890
9	Gran Canaria	15.408	42,21 %
10	Tenerife (TFN+TFS)	14.507	34.04 %

Environment

Swiss aircraft on the general aviation platform of La Coruña airport.

On June 20, 2001, the airport received ISO 14001 certification for the implementation of the environmental management system, becoming the third Spanish airport to have this certification. The environmental management system aims to prevent pollution generated by the airport's activities, products and services. It has other objectives, such as the study and promotion of all the necessary measures to minimize other impacts generated by external agents. The environmental policies are communicated to airport employees, contractors and concessionaires for their awareness through environmental awareness and training programs.