Lorient South Brittany Airport or ''Aéroport de Lorient Bretagne Sud'' , also known as Lorient-Lann-Bihoué Airport, is the

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial Aviation, air transport. They usually consist of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surf ...

serving the city of

Lorient Lorient (; ) is a town (''Communes of France, commune'') and Port, seaport in the Morbihan Departments of France, department of Brittany (administrative region), Brittany in western France. History Prehistory and classical antiquity Beginn ...

. It is situated 5 km west-northwest of Lorient, a '' commune'' of the

Morbihan The Morbihan ( , ; ) is a departments of France, department in the administrative region of Brittany (administrative region), Brittany, situated in the northwest of France. It is named after the Gulf of Morbihan, Morbihan (''small sea'' in Breton ...

département In the administrative divisions of France, the department (, ) is one of the three levels of government under the national level (" territorial collectivities"), between the administrative regions and the communes. There are a total of 101 ...

'' in the

Brittany Brittany ( ) is a peninsula, historical country and cultural area in the north-west of modern France, covering the western part of what was known as Armorica in Roman Gaul. It became an Kingdom of Brittany, independent kingdom and then a Duch ...

region In geography, regions, otherwise referred to as areas, zones, lands or territories, are portions of the Earth's surface that are broadly divided by physical characteristics (physical geography), human impact characteristics (human geography), and ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

Airlines and destinations

The following airline operates regular scheduled and charter flights at Lorient Airport:

Statistics

Military use

The airport is comparatively large, 3 km by 3 km, which is due to its being built during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

to support German

submarine A submarine (often shortened to sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. (It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability.) The term "submarine" is also sometimes used historically or infor ...

operations from the nearby base in

. It is also known as Lann Bihoue Naval Air Base (Base Aéronavale de Lann Bihoué) and is one of the French Naval Aviation bases, currently hosting: * Flottille 4F with Grumman E-2C Hawkeye * Flottille 21F with Atlantique 2 * Flottille 23F with Atlantique 2 * Flottille 24F with Falcon 50 M * Flottille 28F with Embraer Xingu These units also form the airwing which is assigned to the aircraft carrier ''Charles de Gaulle''.

Accidents

*On 30 July 1998 Proteus Airlines Flight 706 collided with a Cessna after flying off-course on approach to the airport, leading to the deaths of the people on both planes.

References

External links

Base Aeronavale Lann BihoueLorient South Brittany Airport
(official site)
Aéroport de Lorient-Bretagne Sud
(Union des Aéroports Français) * Airports in Brittany Lorient Buildings and structures in Morbihan {{France-airport-stub