Cardiff Airport (Welsh: Maes Awyr Caerdydd) (IATA: CWL, ICAO: EGFF) is an international airport owned by the Welsh Government, serving Cardiff and the rest of South, Mid and West Wales. Around 1.2 million passengers passed through the airport in 2011, a 13% reduction on 2010. It is located in the village of Rhoose, Vale of Glamorgan, 12 mi (19 km) west of Cardiff’s city centre.
CARDIFF INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT HISTORY
The history of the airport extends back to the early 1940s, when the Air Ministry requisitioned land in the rural Vale of Glamorgan to set up a wartime satellite aerodrome and training base, named RAF Rhoose, for Royal Air Force (RAF) Spitfire pilots. Construction work commenced in 1941, and the airfield officially began life on 7 April 1942 when it was taken over by No 53 Operational Training Unit. After WW2 the airfield fell into disuse and was abandoned.
The man who decided Rhoose could be the site of a new Airport was David Rees-Williams (later Lord Ogmore) a Bridgend-born solicitor who had served as a Lieutenant-Colonel in the Royal Artillery during the WW2 and who. in 1945, been elected MP for Croydon South. In 1951 Rees-Williams was appointed, briefly, Minister of Aviation and identified what he called a “great need for a commercial airport of international standards” in South Wales. He later told the House of Lords “a decision had to be taken whether to do nothing at all (which was the desire of some) or whether Pengam Moors, the existing airport for Cardiff, should be improved at a cost of some millions of pounds, involving the alteration of the course of the Rumney River or, thirdly, whether an entirely new airport should be constructed or acquired in the vicinity of the capital of Wales.”
CARDIFF INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT LOCATION
Cardiff Airport (Welsh: Maes Awyr Caerdydd) (IATA: CWL, ICAO: EGFF) is an international airport owned by the Welsh Government, serving Cardiff and the rest of South, Mid and West Wales.
CARDIFF INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT FACTS
ICAO/IATA: CWL/EGFF
Lat: 51.39670181274414
Long: -3.34332990646362
Elevation: 220 ft.
Runway length available: 12/30 7848×151 ft.
