Doncaster Airport
Robin Hood Doncaster Airport is located at the old RAF Finningley airbase, in Metropolitan Borough of the Doncaster within the South of Yorkshire, England. Doncaster airport lies at 3NM southeast of the Doncaster and 29 kilometer east of the Sheffield. The airport possesses a Public Use Aerodrome CAA License (P876) that allows the flights for public transport of the passengers or for the flying instructions. Name of this airport is often referred to on the travel/tourist websites and on the literature simply as the Doncaster Airport or the Sheffield Airport, even though official name is still the Robin Hood Doncaster Sheffield. It is operated by the Peel Airports, which is a division of Peel Group and owned by the Vancouver Airport Services. The Peel Airports also manages and owns Durham Tees Valley and Liverpool John Lennon , former Sheffield City and City Manchester Airports. Handling approximately 822,000 passengers in the year 2011, is smaller as compared to the 2 large commercial airports of Yorkshire.
It serves as the home to the Doncaster Sheffield School of Flying which offers introductory flying lessons, aircraft hire and pilot training. It has just one runway designated 02/20 currently, with length of around 2,893 by 60m, that makes it wider and longer than all the other airports in the Northern England region. With such length, it is suitable for the wide-bodied, cargo-carrying or long-haul aircrafts as well. The runway is long enough which also made it as the Space Shuttle landing site for emergencies. There is enough room for further cargo and passenger capacity expansion in future too. As it stands, the Terminal capacity is approximately 2.5 million passengers every year.
Packed with a variety of restaurants, bars and shops, it offers something for all the passengers. Whether the person is travelling as a passenger through or just visit to drop off relatives or dear friends for their holidays, he can treat himself at the best of retail outlets or just stop for having a good food at the locations throughout the airport. All the restaurants and shops open just in time for the passengers who are departing on first flight of day, and will stay open normally until the very last flight of that day. The authorities have also introduced the facility of Wi-Fi access for all the passengers. If the passengers have a Wi-Fi enable device like a PDA or laptop, he can access the wireless internet anytime. The internet access is provided by Cloud, which is a leading operator of Wi-Fi network across Europe. The passengers can avail the facilities of money exchange services, and shop for the magazines, confectionaries, books and newspapers.
The Airline & Tour Operators working are: Crystal Ski, Bolsover Cruise Club, Balkan Holidays, First Choice, Island Cruises, Flybe, P&O Cruises, Thomas Cook, Ryanair, Wizz Air, Transum, Thomsonski and Thomson. A Defence BAE Systems company operates their Aircraft Maintenance Academy from the Hangar No. 3. Other companies that usually operate within the hangars are Kinch Aviation Services and Bespoke Training Systems Ltd. The passenger terminal has 24 check desks, 3 baggage carousels and 6 departure gates. Part of the site of airport is being turned into a technology and business park which would link with M18 motorway at the Junction 3.