Bournemouth Airport
The other major south coast airport, Bournemouth, is currently undergoing a £32 million expansion to cope with an expected three-fold increase in air passengers over the next decade. This year was easily the airport’s busiest year on record, as nearly one million passengers passed through its doors. Its top three destinations were Mallorca’s delightful capital, Palma, Barcelona’s attractive neighbour, Girona, and Glasgow’s overspill airport, Prestwick.
Many leading airlines and tour operators offer flights and holidays from Bournemouth including Airtours, Crystal Holidays, First Choice, Palmair, Ryanair, Thomson Holidays, Thomsonfly.com and Wizz Air. And new routes are appearing on its flight indicator board at a bewildering rate. Last autumn alone, the Polish cities of Krakow, Katowice and Gdansk were added to the list, along with Grenoble, the gateway to the French Alps. Other new routes include Alicante, Milan, Tunis and Fuerteventura, which is the sandiest of the Canary Islands. In May, flights start to Dalaman, on Turkey’s blissful Lycian coast, and Heraklion in Crete. There are long established summer flights as far afield as Croatia and Cyprus, and winter charter flights to the famous Mexican beach resort of Acapulco and the Caribbean island of Dominican Republic.
Getting there
From Bournemouth station, catch the A1 Bournemouth Airport Shuttle bus (01202 557007) from Bournemouth Travel Interchange, next door to the station, for the 15-minute journey; departs every hour on the hour Mon-Sat 7am to 6pm; £4 single.
01202 364000; bournemouthairport.com
page 3 of 5 