Glasgow Prestwick Airport

Glasgow Prestwick Airport
IATA: PIK ICAO: EGPK
Summary
Airport type	Public
Owner	Scottish Government
Operator	Prestwick Aviation Holdings Ltd.
Serves	South Ayrshire, East Ayrshire, North Ayrshire & Glasgow
Location	Prestwick, South Ayrshire, Scotland
Focus city for	Ryanair
Elevation AMSL	66 ft / 20 m
Coordinates	55°30′34″N 004°35′40″W / 55.50944°N 4.59444°W / 55.50944; -4.59444
Website	www.glasgowprestwick.com
Map
EGPK Location in South Ayrshire Show map of South Ayrshire EGPK EGPK (Scotland) Show map of Scotland EGPK EGPK (the United Kingdom) Show map of the United Kingdom
Runways
Direction Length Surface m ft 12/30 2,986 9,797 Concrete/asphalt 02/20 1,905 6,250 Asphalt
Statistics (2023)
Passengers 524,000 Passenger change 22-23 18% Aircraft movements 24,000 Movements change 22-23 29%
Sources: UK AIP at NATS[1] Statistics from the UK Civil Aviation Authority[2]

Glasgow Prestwick Airport (IATA: PIK, ICAO: EGPK), commonly referred to as Prestwick Airport, is an international airport serving the west of Scotland, situated one nautical mile (two kilometres) northeast of the town of Prestwick Scotland, and 32 miles (51 kilometres) southwest of Glasgow, Scotland.^[1] It is the less busy of the two airports serving the western part of Scotland's Central Belt, after Glasgow Airport in Renfrewshire, within the Greater Glasgow conurbation. The airport serves the urban cluster surrounding Ayr, including Kilmarnock, Irvine, Ardrossan, Troon, Saltcoats, Stevenston, Kilwinning, and Prestwick itself.

Glasgow Prestwick is Scotland's fifth-busiest airport in terms of passenger traffic, although it is the largest in terms of land area. Passenger traffic peaked at 2.4 million in 2007 following a decade of rapid growth, driven in part by the boom in low-cost carriers, particularly Ryanair, which uses the airport as an operating base. In recent years, passenger traffic has declined; around 670,000 passengers passed through the airport in 2016.^[2]

There has been much public debate and speculation over the association of the airport with Glasgow due to the fact Prestwick and Glasgow are considerably far apart. Calls have been made for the airport to be renamed Robert Burns International Airport, however, this was ruled out by the Scottish Government in 2014.^[3][4]

Prestwick has also had a long historical connection with transatlantic flight, being part of the Atlantic Bridge route between Europe and North America, and remains an important airport for both the United States Air Force and Royal Canadian Air Force, who use it as a refuelling stop,^[5] and in the case of the former the favoured airport used by Air Force One whenever the President of the United States is visiting Scotland. The operations centre of Shanwick Oceanic Control is located close to the airport, which controls all air traffic on the north eastern quadrant of the North Atlantic Ocean, including Scottish airspace (Scottish Area Control Centre), as well as the airspace over much of the north of England, the Midlands and north Wales (Manchester Area Control Centre).^[6][7]