Girona-Costa Brava Airport

Infobox Airport
name = Girona-Costa Brava Airport
nativename = Aeroport de Girona
IATA = GRO
ICAO = LEGE
type = Public
owner = Aeropuertos Españoles y Navegación Aérea (AENA)
location = Girona, Catalonia
elevation-f = 465.8
elevation-m = 142
coordinates = coord|41|54|00|N|2|46|00|E|type:airport
r1-number = 02/20
r1-length-f = 7,874
r1-length-m = 2,400
r1-surface = Asphalt

Girona-Costa Brava Airport Airport codes|GRO|LEGE is an airport located 12 km south of the city of Girona, next to the small village of Vilobí d'Onyar, in the north-east of Catalonia, Spain. It is well connected to the "Costa Brava", Barcelona and the Pyrenees.

The airport was built in 1965,Fact|date=June 2008 but passenger traffic was modest.Fact|date=June 2008 The early 2000s saw passenger numbers grow spectacularly after Ryanair chose Girona as one of its European hubs.Fact|date=June 2008 In 1993 Girona Airport only dealt with 275,000 passengersFact|date=June 2008 but by 2007 that number had escalated to more than 4.8 million passengers.Fact|date=June 2008

Many people use Girona Airport as an alternative airport for Barcelona, though the airport is 92 km (57.5 miles) [ [http://www.viamichelin.es/viamichelin/esp/dyn/controller/ItiWGPerformPage?ie=utf-8&reinit=1&strStartCityCountry=844&strStartAddress=&strStartMerged=barcelona&strDestCityCountry=844&strDestAddress=&strDestMerged=aeropuerto+girona&image2.x=30&image2.y=16# ViaMichelin : Itinéraire, Route, Plan, Carte de France, Plan de Ville, Carte Europe ] ] north of Barcelona. Passengers can transfer to Barcelona by bus or taxi from the airport, or by train from Girona train station.

Statistics

Passenger numbers 1997 to 2007:

To and around the airport

From Girona Airport you can easily reach the resorts along the "Costa Brava", places such as Lloret de Mar, l'Estartit, Blanes. You are also only about a 40 minute drive from the French border and many people use Girona Airport as a way of getting to the Pyrenees and the Ski Resort of Andorra.

By car

The airport is served by three main roads:
* E-15/AP-7 toll road (Perpignan, France - south of Spain)
* C-25 (Lleida - Girona)
* N-II, no-toll road (Madrid - Barcelona - Perpignan, France)

By bus

There are 4 bus lines operating in the airport:
* Airport-Barcelona (1 hour 10 minutes, departure times depending on flights (on Sunday the last bus leaves Barcelona at 7.15pm))
* Airport-Costa Brava/Maresme (Stops at Tossa de Mar, Lloret de Mar, Blanes, Malgrat de Mar, Santa Susanna, Pineda de Mar and Calella de la Costa),
* Airport-North Costa Brava (Stops at Figueres, Roses, Pineda de Mar, Calella de la Costa and Tossa de Mar)
* Airport-Girona (25 minutes, one every hour).
* Airport - Perpignan in France. Frogbus. 6 times daily. Stops at Le Boulou.

By train

There is no train station at the airport. The closest one is in Girona city. There is a project to build a station for the future AVE line Barcelona-France (Spanish TGV).

Airliner crash, 1999

On 14 September 1999, at 21:47 UTC, a Boeing 757-204 charter flight from Cardiff, Wales, UK, with 236 passengers and 9 crew left the runway when landing in a storm and broke apart. After leaving the runway, it ran 343 meters across flat grassland beside the runway, before going diagonally over a substantial earth mound adjacent to the airport boundary, becoming semi-airborne as a result. Beyond the mound it hit and severed a number of medium sized trees and the right engine struck the boundary fence. The aircraft then yawed considerably to the right, passed through the fence, re-landed in a field and both main landing gears collapsed. It finally stopped after a 244 meter slide across the field.

Damage was substantial: the fuselage was broken in two places and the landing gear and both engines detached. Remarkably, there were no immediate fatalities but 44 people, including the aircraft´s captain, received hospital treatment for severe to minor injuries.cite news
title = Special Bulletin S1/2000 - Boeing 757-204, G-BYAG
publisher = Air Accidents Investigation Branch
date = 2000
url = http://www.aaib.dft.gov.uk/cms_resources/dft_avsafety_pdf_503168.pdf
accessdate = ] cite news
title = BBC report of air crash
publisher = BBC
date = 1999
url = http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/448473.stm
accessdate = ]

Airlines and destinations

*Jetairfly (Brussels) [seasonal]
*Ryanair (Aarhus, Alghero, Altenburg, Basel, Billund, Birmingham, Blackpool, Bologna-Forli, Bournemouth, Bratislava, Bremen, Bristol, Brno, Brussels-Charleroi, Cagliari, Doncaster/Sheffield, Dublin, Durham Tees Valley, East Midlands, Eindhoven, Fez, Frankfurt-Hahn, Fuerteventura, Glasgow-Prestwick, Gothenburg-City, Granada, Graz, Hamburg-Lübeck, Ibiza [begins 4 November] , Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden, Leeds/Bradford [begins 1 October] , Linz, Liverpool, London-Luton, London-Stansted, Maastricht, Madrid, Malta, Manchester, Marrakech, Milan-Bergamo, Newcastle, Newquay, Oslo-Torp, Palma de Mallorca [begins 19 December] , Paris-Beauvais, Pescara, Pisa, Porto, Poznań, Rome-Ciampino, Shannon, Stockholm-Skavsta, Tenerife-South, Trapani, Turin [begins 28 October] , Venice-Treviso, Weeze, Wrocław)
*Smart Wings (Brno, Ostrava, Prague)
*Spanair (Madrid, Ibiza [seasonal] , Mahon [seasonal] , Palma de Mallorca [seasonal] )
*Thomas Cook Airlines (Belfast-International, Birmingham, Manchester) [seasonal]
*Thomsonfly (Birmingham, Cardiff, London-Gatwick, Manchester, Newcastle) [seasonal]
*transavia.com (Amsterdam, Paris-Orly, Rotterdam)
*Wizz Air (Budapest [seasonal] , Gdańsk [seasonal] , Katowice, Sofia)

External links

*
* [http://www.aena.es/csee/Satellite?cid=1046767807255&pagename=subHome&SiteName=GRO&c=Page&Language=EN_GB Girona Airport official website] (Aena)
* [http://barcelona-girona-airport.com Free online Guide about Girona airport]
* [http://www.aena.es AENA Website about Spanish airports]
* [http://www.girona-tourist-guide.com/en/airport/transport-gerona-airport.html Girona Airport Transport]
* [http://en.costabrava.org/categories/subcategory.aspx?t=aeropuertos&com=UwBlAGEAcgBjAGgASQBuAGYAbwBcADAANgAvADAANAAvADIAMAAwADcAfAAwADkALwAwADQALwAyADAAMAA3AHwAMwA0AHwAMQA0AHwAXABDAGEAdABlAGcAbwByAHkASQBEAFwAMQA2ADcAXAA= Maps and transports Airport Costa Brava]
* [http://www.frogbus.com Frogbus Girona airport to Perpignan online booking]

Notes and references