IT'S all change at Glasgow Airport with its new chief, Andy Cliffe, setting out his ambitious strategy for growth at Scotland's second busiest airport. Last year it attracted 6.5 million passengers as it recovered from the pandemic.
The airport, which opened in May 1966, has had a colourful past. Here we present 11 little-known facts about the airport.
The first receptionists at the new airport were described as 'image girls'
In December 1965 it was reported that Glasgow Corporation would employ 12 receptionists at its information desk at Abbotsinch when it opened the following May (the Corporation was responsible for the operation of the airport).
Airport director Ronald A. Read said: "The receptionists will require to be intelligent and fluent in at least one foreign language. They will be image girls". The 12 would be able to supply facts on hire-cars, taxis, onward travel and other subjects; their uniforms were being designed by a West End designer.
The airport was worried that its transit lounge might be inadequate
That same December, Mr Read said that the Ministry of Aviation had "grossly underestimated" the requirements for the processing of incoming passengers. The lounge and other facilities, designed by an architect on the basis of figures supplied by the Ministry, could cope with the expected traffic at Glasgow's then-current airport, Renfrew. But Mr Read said the passenger figures for 1964 exceeded the estimated 1965 figures. He added that he had been advised that it was architecturally impossible to improve the Abbosinch facilities. All that could be done was to build a new annexe - and somehow link it to the transit lounge.
From road to runway...
Part of the M8 motorway, between junctions 26 and 27, is said to be the site of, or close to, runway 08/26. "Today there is little to remind the thousands of motorists using the M8 that there ever was an airport at Renfrew", writes the former pilot, Bill Innes, in his book, Flight from the Croft. "However, if westbound passengers look to their left, they can still see the cemetery which rather ominously dominated the view for the departing air passengers".
The new airport was still applying finishing touches when it opened on Monday, May 2, 1966
There were, here and there, understandable minor snags: a shortage of porters, and telephone boxes that did not quite function properly. Tradesmen were still at work in the terminal building at 6.30am, half-an-hour before the first passenger arrived. Still, it all went well. "One would have expected a large number of snags moving into a new £5 million airport", Mr Read declared, having had only five hours' sleep that entire weekend, "but there were a lot fewer than I had imagined under the circumstances".
The first director had been a war-time bomber pilot
Mr Read, like many of his senior colleagues at Glasgow Airport, were steeped in aviation. He had joined the RAF in 1940, the same year as the Battle of Britain, and he became a bomber pilot, serving in Wellingtons, Halifaxes and Lancasters. By the time he left the service in 1946 he had become a squadron leader, with the Distinguished Flying Cross. After the war he worked in civil aviation all over the world – including bush-flying in British Guiana – before being appointed to head the new airport at Abbotsinch. He was still only 44. Glasgow, he said, was "the most challenging [job] I have ever encountered ... the challenge at Abbotsinch will be here a long time yet".
The new airport had a very busy first day
The airport had 150 aircraft movements on its first day, many of them by British European Airways (BEA), who took the occasion to announce that 1,665,000 seats would be provided on Scotland-London routes that summer, 950,000 of them from Glasgow.
Captain Eric Starling, BEA's flight manager, who piloted the very first airliner to touch down at Glasgow, said: "The runway at Renfrew was cracking up. I doubt if it would have lasted another month, so we are thankful that Abbotsinch opened up on time. If Renfrew had gone on, the runway would have been closed down for repairs".
Who was the very first passenger?
The first passenger to check into the new terminal building was Peter Boyd, a 38-year-old chief industrial engineer with the Stephen's shipyard at Linthouse, Glasgow. He was making a routine business trip to London, but reached the airport fully 75 minutes before his departure time. "I felt like a VIP with all those airline staff standing by, apparently waiting to greet me, " Mr Boyd, of Drymen, told reporters.
The first plane to land at the new airport ...
... Was a six-seater Piper Cherokee, flown by Capt Kenneth Foster, then Loganair's chief training pilot. On May 1, 1966, the day before the airport officially opened, he was piloting an Aviation Ministry inspector who was checking the approach and runway lighting before the airport could be licensed for use. The first commercial flight, the following day, was a British European Airways service from Edinburgh.
The opening of the airport was a real attraction
So many sightseers drove to Abbotsinch to see the new airport on May 2 that some travellers got stuck in traffic jams and missed their flights. There were several hundred people in the building but this did not have an impact on passenger handling.
One of the first celebs to visit the airport was ...
Marlene Dietrich, who arrived in November 1966 for a concert at the city's Alhambra theatre. "I'm not so terribly old", she said. "The press always like to make you older than you really are". She is seen here with seven-year-old Iain Robertson, of Mosspark, Glasgow, the son of John Robertson, assistant manager at the Alhambra.
In 1983 the airport welcomed no fewer than three Concordes
Among the many headline-grabbing arrivals at Glasgow Airport over the decades was this one, in August 1983, of three 100-seat Concordes. It was a plane-spotter's dream. The sleek trio of aircraft were used to launch a super shuttle service between Glasgow and London, fare £58. BA said that 567 of the 600 seats were occupied on the three return flights.
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