Donegal Airport ( ga, Aerfort Dhún na nGall) is located south-west of

Bunbeg ''An Bun Beag'' (anglicised as Bunbeg), meaning "the small river mouth", is a small Gaeltacht village and townland in County Donegal, Ireland. It is officially the smallest townland in ''Gaoth Dobhair'' (Gweedore), but today the name Bunbeg is ...

in Carrickfinn, a

townland A townland ( ga, baile fearainn; Ulster-Scots: ''toonlann'') is a small geographical division of land, historically and currently used in Ireland and in the Western Isles in Scotland, typically covering . The townland system is of Gaelic origi ...

The Rosses The Rosses (officially known by its Irish language name, ''Na Rosa''; in the genitive case ''Na Rosann'') is a geographical and social region in the west of County Donegal, Ireland, with a population of over 7,000 centred on the town of Dungloe, ...

, a district in north-west

County Donegal County Donegal ( ; ga, Contae Dhún na nGall) is a county of Ireland in the province of Ulster and in the Northern and Western Region. It is named after the town of Donegal in the south of the county. It has also been known as County Tyrconne ...

, Ireland. The airport is on the county's north-west coast. about a 15-minute drive from

Dungloe ''An Clochán Liath'', known in English as Dungloe or Dunglow ( ), is a town in County Donegal, Ireland. It is the main town in The Rosses and the largest in the Donegal ''Gaeltacht''. Dungloe developed as a town in the middle of the 18th century ...

and

Gweedore Gweedore ( ; officially known by its Irish language name, ) is an Irish-speaking district and parish located on the Atlantic coast of County Donegal in the north-west of Ireland. Gweedore stretches some from Glasserchoo in the north to Crolly ...

and 45 minutes from

Letterkenny Letterkenny ( ga, Leitir Ceanainn , meaning 'hillside of the O'Cannons'), nicknamed 'the Cathedral Town', is the largest and most populous town in County Donegal, a county in Ulster, the northern province in Ireland. Letterkenny lies on the R ...

. It is popularly known within County Donegal as Carrickfinn Airport.

History

20th century

Until the mid-1980s, the runway was a grass strip. This was replaced by a hard surface runway with temporary buildings. The airport started operations in 1986 and was developed with funds and assistance from the

Government of Ireland The Government of Ireland ( ga, Rialtas na hÉireann) is the cabinet that exercises executive authority in Ireland. The Constitution of Ireland vests executive authority in a government which is headed by the , the head of government. The governm ...

, private investors, Donegal County Council, the

International Fund for Ireland The International Fund for Ireland is an independent international organisation established in 1986 by the British and Irish governments with the objectives of promoting "economic and social advance and to encourage contact, dialogue and reconcilia ...

and the

European Regional Development Fund The European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) is one of the European Structural and Investment Funds allocated by the European Union. Its purpose is to transfer money from richer regions (not countries), and invest it in the infrastructure and se ...

. In the 1990s the runway was extended to and a new

terminal Terminal may refer to: Computing Hardware * Terminal (electronics), a device for joining electrical circuits together * Terminal (telecommunication), a device communicating over a line * Computer terminal, a set of primary input and output dev ...

building with modern

navigational aid Navigation is a field of study that focuses on the process of monitoring and controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another.Bowditch, 2003:799. The field of navigation includes four general categories: land navigation, ...

s and equipment was added.

2000s

On 21 February 2007, the Irish Government announced that it would be giving €3.8 million to the airport in capital grant money. Domestic service to Dublin was established by

Aer Arann Stobart Air, legally incorporated as ''Stobart Air Unlimited Company'', was an Irish regional airline headquartered in Dublin. It operated scheduled services under the brands Aer Lingus Regional, BA CityFlyer and KLM Cityhopper on behalf of t ...

. Aer Arann operated flights to

Cork Cork or CORK may refer to: Materials * Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product ** Cork (plug), a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container ***Wine cork Places Ireland * Cork (city) ** Metropolitan Cork, also known as G ...

via Dublin in 2009 until they reduced their Cork-Dublin service to six times per week. The route closed in March 2010. In February 2010, Aer Arann closed its service to

Glasgow Prestwick Airport Glasgow Prestwick Airport () is an international airport serving the west of Scotland, situated northeast of the town of Prestwick in South Ayrshire and southwest of Glasgow. It is the less busy of the two airports serving the western part of ...

and relocated to

Glasgow International Airport gd, Port-adhair Eadar-nàiseanta Ghlaschu , image = Glasgow Airport logo.svg , image-width = 200 , image2 = GlasgowAirportFromAir.jpg , image2-width = 250 , IATA = GLA , ICAO = EGPF , type = Public , owner = AGS Airports , hub = *easy ...

. Late 2000s and early 2010s,

CityJet CityJet is an Irish regional airline with headquarters in Swords, Dublin. It was founded in 1992 and has gone through a series of corporate structures. Air France sold CityJet to ''Intro Aviation'' in May 2014; in March 2016 the airline was b ...

operated a Saturday seasonal charter flight to

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte'') is the second largest city and municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the province of South Holland, part of the North Sea mouth of the Rhine–Meuse–Scheldt delta, via the ''"N ...

between April and September using a Fokker 50.

2010s

Service to Dublin was operated from 2012 to 2015 by

Loganair Loganair is a Scottish regional airline based at Glasgow Airport near Paisley, Scotland. It is the largest regional airline in the UK by passenger numbers and fleet size. In addition to its main base at Glasgow, it has hubs at Aberdeen, Edinb ...

and

Flybe Flybe (pronounced ), styled as flybe, is a British airline based at Birmingham Airport, England. History The airline traces its history back to Jersey European Airways, which was set up in 1979 following the merger of Intra Airways and Expre ...

using a Saab 340 which rotated via Glasgow to provide aircraft and crew replenishment.

Stobart Air Stobart Air, legally incorporated as ''Stobart Air Unlimited Company'', was an Irish regional airline headquartered in Dublin. It operated scheduled services under the brands Aer Lingus Regional, BA CityFlyer and KLM Cityhopper on behalf of the ...

, operating as

Aer Lingus Regional Aer Lingus Regional is an Aer Lingus brand which has been used for commuter and regional flights. Aer Lingus Regional scheduled passenger services operate primarily from Ireland to the United Kingdom, France, and the Channel Islands, and also ...

, received public service obligation funding from the

Irish Government The Government of Ireland ( ga, Rialtas na hÉireann) is the cabinet that exercises executive authority in Ireland. The Constitution of Ireland vests executive authority in a government which is headed by the , the head of government. The governm ...

to subsidise the route to

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of th ...

. A contract was awarded in 2014, and the service commenced on 1 March 2015, using an ATR 42-300 (reg nos. EI-CBK or EI-EHH). The service was operated using an ATR 42-600 (reg nos. EI-GEV) from 2018 until the demise of Stobart Air, in June 2021.

2020s

In July 2021,

Amapola Flyg Amapola Flyg is a passenger and cargo airline based in Stockholm, Sweden. It operates freight services on behalf of the Swedish Post Office, Jetpak and MiniLiner from Maastricht Aachen Airport and its main base at Stockholm-Arlanda Airport. I ...

a Swedish regional airline was awarded the PSO route from Dublin to Donegal, as a temporary measure following the demise of Stobart Air. The contract was awarded for a span of 7 months from July 2021 until February 2022. In March 2022,

Emerald Airlines Emerald Airlines is an Irish regional airline headquartered in Dublin, on the grounds of Dublin Airport. In August 2021, the airline became the operator of the Aer Lingus Regional franchise, before operations launched on 26 February 2022. His ...

(on behalf of

) began flights to Dublin.

Airline and destination

The following airline operates regular scheduled flights to and from Donegal:

Statistics

Airport data

* Traffic permitted:

Instrument flight rules In aviation, instrument flight rules (IFR) is one of two sets of regulations governing all aspects of civil aviation aircraft operations; the other is visual flight rules (VFR). The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) ''Instrument Fly ...

Visual flight rules In aviation, visual flight rules (VFR) are a set of regulations under which a pilot operates an aircraft in weather conditions generally clear enough to allow the pilot to see where the aircraft is going. Specifically, the weather must be better ...

* Strength

Pavement Classification Number The Aircraft Classification Number (ACN) – Pavement Classification Number (PCN) method is a standardized international airport pavement rating system promulgated by the ICAO in 1981. The method has been the official ICAO pavement rating system f ...

(PCN): 21/F/B/X/T * Tower Frequency: 129.80

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one he ...

* Navigational Aids:

Non-directional beacon A non-directional beacon (NDB) or non-directional radio beacon is a radio beacon which does not include directional information. Radio beacons are radio transmitters at a known location, used as an aviation or marine navigational aid. NDB are ...

(NDB) 361 kHz "CFN",

Distance measuring equipment In aviation, distance measuring equipment (DME) is a radio navigation technology that measures the slant range (distance) between an aircraft and a ground station by timing the propagation delay of radio signals in the frequency band between 9 ...

(DME) 110.3 MHz "IFN",

Localizer An instrument landing system localizer, or simply localizer (LOC), is a system of horizontal guidance in the instrument landing system, which is used to guide aircraft along the axis of the runway. Principle of operation In aviation, a localiz ...

LLZ 110.3 MHz "IFN"

Trivia

*The airport was voted the world's most scenic landing spot in 2018, 2019, and 2020.

References

External links

Official website
* * {{authority control Airports in the Republic of Ireland Transport in County Donegal