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Birmingham International Airport is a major airport located on the south eastern outskirts of the city of Birmingham in the West Midlands, England. It has the IATA Airport Code BHX (there is also a Birmingham International Airport in Alabama with code BHM).
Status
Birmingham airport is the fifth busiest airport in the United Kingdom, and handles (as of 2003) eight million passengers a year. It presently offers nonstop flights to Newark International Airport in Newark, New Jersey, near New York and to destinations across Europe and some flights to the Indian subcontinent and the Middle East.
The airport is next to the M42 motorway and A45 main road. It is also served by Birmingham International railway station on the West Coast Main Line.
History
The airport was opened at Elmdon on 8 July 1939, and was owned and operated by Birmingham City Council.
The airport was requisitioned by the Air Ministry during the Second World War and was used by the RAF for military purposes.
It returned to civilian use in July 1946, though still under government control.
During the post-war years, public evensts, such as air fairs and even circuit- races, were held.
The City of Birmingham took over responsibility again in 1960, and ownership of the airport passed to the newly-formed West Midlands County Council in 1974.
As the airport became busier, and international flights became more frequent, the airport was gradually expanded. 1984 saw a new terminal open, which could handle three million passengers a year. A second terminal, "Eurohub", supposedly the first terminal in the world to combine domestic and international passengers, opened on July 26 1991 (with Concorde in attendance), more than doubling the airport's capacity.
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