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Glasgow International Airport (ICAO: EGPF) lies at Paisley in Renfrewshire, some seven miles west of Glasgow city centre, and is Scotland's second-busiest airport after Edinburgh. Built on the former RAF and Royal Naval station of Abbotsinch, it opened as the city's main civil airport in May 1966 and today operates as a major controlled-airspace destination with full ATC, an ILS-equipped main runway and a secondary crosswind strip.
Glasgow International Airport, ICAO code EGPF, is a large international airport at Paisley in Renfrewshire, Scotland, owned and operated by AGS Airports (which also runs Aberdeen and Southampton). It is a hub for Loganair, which is headquartered and maintains a hangar there, and a focus city for easyJet, Jet2.com and TUI Airways. For a simulator pilot the field offers a busy, fully controlled environment with an ILS approach, a rich military aviation history stretching back to the 1930s, and the contrast of a long main runway alongside a much shorter secondary strip.
The airport sits at Paisley, Renfrewshire, about seven miles (11 km) west of Glasgow city centre, on a site between the Black Cart Water and the White Cart Water. As a major international airport it operates within controlled airspace with a full air traffic control service, and its history is closely tied to the earlier Renfrew Airport, whose original site lay about two miles to the east (now occupied in part by the M8 motorway).
Glasgow has two physical runways. The main runway, 05/23, is a hard surface, lit and equipped with an ILS in both directions, with a declared length of 8,702 ft available on runway 05 and 7,723 ft available on runway 23. A shorter secondary runway, 09/27, is also hard-surfaced and lit, with a length of 3,551 ft in each direction and no instrument landing system. Field elevation is 23 ft.
Air traffic control operates as Glasgow Tower, with Ground on 121.705 MHz and Tower on 118.805 MHz. Approach control is available on 119.105 MHz, and the ATIS broadcasts on 129.58 MHz. Shanwick Oceanic area control can be heard on 120.35 MHz. The main runway, 05/23, is equipped with an ILS for instrument approaches.
The airfield's origins date to 1932, when the site at Abbotsinch, near Paisley, was opened as an overspill for the RAF base at nearby Renfrew. No. 602 (City of Glasgow) Squadron of the Auxiliary Air Force moved its Westland Wapiti aircraft there from Renfrew in 1933, and RAF Station Abbotsinch was formally established on 1 July 1936. From May to October 1939 the squadron flew Supermarine Spitfires from the field. During the Second World War a torpedo training unit formed there in 1940 to train RAF Coastal Command and Royal Navy crews, and the Admiralty took over a lodger facility from June 1940. The station passed to the Admiralty in August 1943 as Royal Naval Air Station Abbotsinch, commissioned HMS Sanderling on 20 September that year, and through the 1950s housed an aircraft storage unit and Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve squadrons before the Royal Navy departed in October 1963. The name was preserved afterwards through the ship's bell presented to the new airport and a bar named The Sanderling Bar. Numerous RAF and Fleet Air Arm squadrons were based at the airfield at various times, including Nos. 602, 607 and 610 Squadrons RAF and a long list of Naval Air Squadrons. Glasgow Airport was officially opened on 2 May 1966, replacing Renfrew Airport as the city's principal airport and recording over a million passengers by the end of that year.
Glasgow Airport remains one of the busiest airports in Scotland, handling around 8 million passengers in 2024 and ranking second in the country after Edinburgh and ninth in the United Kingdom. It is home to Loganair, which bases a maintenance hangar there, and serves as a focus city for easyJet, Jet2.com and TUI Airways. Ownership rests with AGS Airports, having previously been part of the BAA/Heathrow Airport Holdings group. As a major customs and international airport with full air traffic control, visiting aircraft should expect a formal, controlled operating environment typical of a large commercial hub.
