Humberside Airport

Humberside Airport is an international airport at Kirmington in North Lincolnshire, England, from Grimsby (east), Hull (north) and Scunthorpe (west). It is also from Lincoln, the county's largest city.

It was owned by Manchester Airports Group from 1999 until 1 August 2012, when it was sold to the Eastern Group of companies. North Lincolnshire Council retains a minority of shares in the airport.

The airport's majority owner is Bristow Helicopters.

History

The airport was previously a Royal Air Force base, RAF Kirmington, opened in 1941 during the Second World War, from which No. 166 Squadron RAF operated the Avro Lancaster. The airfield was closed after the war in 1945, and lay unused as an airfield until 1973 when the local council decided to establish an airport at the site. Work included resurfacing the runways, installing lighting, construction of a new designated terminal building and the building of a taxiway. The first commercial flight took place in 1975 to Amsterdam.

In 2008, MAG, the owners at that time, announced that it was conducting a review of its strategy for Humberside Airport, and all options including disposal were under consideration. Initially it announced plans to sell Humberside Airport after nine years of ownership. In December 2008, MAG announced it intended to retain Humberside Airport, due to a number of investments, such as the new £1.6million perishables hub, coupled with a surge in passenger numbers and little interest from potential bidders. MAG sold its 83.7% share of Humberside in 2012 for £2.3million to Eastern Group to focus on the larger airports in its portfolio. It was later revealed that MAG had bought the airport for almost £8million more in 1999.

Operations

The airport faces competition for flights from East Midlands Airport (), and Leeds Bradford Airport (); all of which, at , have a much wider range of scheduled passenger flights. Passengers at the airport peaked in the early to mid-2000s when the facility was used by around 500,000 per year. This fell to around 200,000 passengers in 2016. However, Sun Air launched twice-weekly flights to Aalborg and Billund in April 2016, in order to support the off-shore wind industry in the Humber and Jutland locations. These flights were also suspended in December 2016.

The airport is also used to service the offshore gas storage and drilling operations for BP and Centrica Storage with over 5,000 air transport helicopter movements in 2016, the fourth highest in the UK.

From 1 April 2015, Bristow Helicopters commenced operations from a new UK Search and Rescue base at Humberside. In October 2016 Bristow Helicopters and Bond (now Babcock) moved their offshore operations to Norwich, leaving CHC and UNI-FLY as the remaining helicopter companies based at Humberside. CHC was scheduled to commence a new contract for Ørsted (formerly DONG Energy) in April 2018, supporting North Sea wind farm construction.

Humberside has one of the highest NEQ approval levels of any airport in Europe, and saw significant growth in cargo throughput from 144tonnes in 2007 to 1,132tonnes in 2011.

Statistics

Passengers and movements

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|+Humberside Airport passenger totals 2000-2024 (thousands)

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bar:2000 from:start till:447.738

bar:2001 from:start till:435.473

bar:2002 from:start till:492.433

bar:2003 from:start till:517.692

bar:2004 from:start till:531.277

bar:2005 from:start till:460.930

bar:2006 from:start till:520.956

bar:2007 from:start till:468.522

bar:2008 from:start till:427.669

bar:2009 from:start till:336.649

bar:2010 from:start till:283.191

bar:2011 from:start till:274.609

bar:2012 from:start till:234.142

bar:2013 from:start till:236.083

bar:2014 from:start till:239.17

bar:2015 from:start till:221.203

bar:2016 from:start till:201.650

bar:2017 from:start till:191.545

bar:2018 from:start till:192.526

bar:2019 from:start till:204.463

bar:2020 from:start till:45.273

bar:2021 from:start till:31.534

bar:2022 from:start till:92.465

bar:2023 from:start till:136.976

bar:2024 from:start till:150.615

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thumb|upright=0.75|The memorial to 166 squadron at the door of the modern airport terminal

{| class="wikitable sortable" style="text-align:right; margin:0;"

|+ Number of Passengers (2000–2024)

! Rank || Airport || Total <br />passengers || Change<br />2024 / 25

|1|| Amsterdam ||align='right'|121,880|| 16.3%

|2|| Palma de Mallorca|| style="text-align:right;"| 18,426|| 103.0%

|3|| Aberdeen ||align='right'| 6,661|| 33.0%

Ground transport

thumb|Barnetby station with "Alight here for Humberside Airport" signage

Bus

Hornsby's Bus and Coach run a two-hourly service to the village of Kirmington, whilst stopping within airport grounds each way (Monday–Friday). Hornsby's also run a service every two-hourly on a Saturday from Kirmington to Brigg and further on to Kirton in Lindsey.

Rail

The airport lies close to the South Humberside Main Line, which runs between Doncaster and the coast at Grimsby and Cleethorpes, running a few hundred metres to the north of the terminal. There is no stop on the line at this point and passengers must alight at Barnetby railway station, to the west of the airport, or proceed to Grimsby or Hull and use the bus service.

As of May 2022, a bus service operates from Scunthorpe calling at the surrounding villages (including Barnetby) and terminates at nearby Kirmington. The bus service runs on a two-hourly frequency and calls at Humberside Airport. However, the bus does not call at Barnetby railway station, so passengers must walk a short distance to the nearby bus stop on Kings Road.

Other facilities

The airline Eastern Airways has its head office in the Schiphol House on the airport property. Links Air was based at the airport, but moved to Doncaster Sheffield Airport in 2014.

BAE Systems opened an aircraft maintenance academy at the airport in the autumn of 2015. It is a partnership with the Resource Group and is known as the R J Mitchell Academy, after the designer of the Spitfire aircraft.

In 2010 a temporary hotel was erected for the use by the gas and oil rig workers. However, this operation is not designed or licensed to operate as accommodation for normal passengers. This is a temporary structure run by Nightel, a locally based niche business. There was a plan to build a permanent structure in the next five years once demand for the facility had been confirmed. A new 100 bedroom hotel, operating under the Hampton by Hilton brand, opened next to Nightel in July 2017.

Accidents and incidents

9 October 2013 – The passenger of Cessna 172 G-BCYR made a successful emergency landing at Humberside following the death of its pilot in flight. The passenger had no flying experience and was talked down by flying instructors. He had been on a local flight from Sandtoft Airfield, Lincolnshire when the pilot died. The incident formed the basis of a documentary broadcast in the United Kingdom by Channel 4 on 27 March 2014.