Dublin Airport Celebrates 75 Years

By Publications Checkout
Dublin Airport Celebrates 75 Years

Dublin Airport celebrates its 75th birthday this week, evolving from grass runways in the early 1940s to amassing 435 million passengers.

The airport opened for business on Friday, January 19, 1940, with an Aer Lingus Lockheed 14 aircraft departing the grass runway for Liverpool's Speke Airport.

Planning for the airport began in 1936 when the government decided to introduce a new civil airport at Collinstown rather than share with the military airport at Baldonnel.

When the airport first opened there was no terminal buildings. Development on the site was interrupted by World War II. The first tarmac runway wasn't opened until 1947.

The first scheduled service to London began in November 1945 was a two and a half hour direct flight to Croydon Airport.

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Passenger numbers reached 23.5 million in 2010 and Terminal Two opened for business.

Dublin Airport have said more than 435 million passenger journeys had taken place in 75 years at the airport.

It's reported that music from the 1940s and 1950s will be played in both terminals, with photographic exhibitions recalling over seven decades of aviation.