Departure
98%
vs 95% ▲ 3
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Bilbao Airport (LEBB) is the principal airport of the Basque Country, sited at Loiu on the northern edge of Bilbao and instantly recognisable from the air by Santiago Calatrava's dove-shaped terminal, popularly known as La Paloma. It is a busy international field with a full ATC service and ILS approach, serving as the main base for Volotea and the second base of Vueling.
Bilbao Airport carries the ICAO code LEBB and lies in the municipality of Loiu, with part of its site also falling within neighbouring Sondika, on the northern fringe of the city of Bilbao in the Basque Country. It is the largest and most important airport in the Basque Country and in northern Spain, notable to visiting pilots for its striking Calatrava-designed terminal, often called La Paloma for its bird-like form. The field is a significant base for Volotea and the second most important base for Vueling, giving it a lively mix of scheduled and low-cost traffic that a visiting VFR or IFR pilot should expect to integrate with.
The airport sits a short distance north of Bilbao, variously given as around 9 to 12 kilometres from the city centre, in the municipality of Loiu with facilities extending into Sondika to the southwest. Its provision of approach, tower and ground frequencies together with an ILS indicates it operates within controlled airspace, and pilots should expect to work with Bilbao's air traffic services throughout the arrival and departure phases.
Bilbao has two physical runways. Runway 12/30 is a hard-surfaced, lit runway with an ILS, measuring 8527 feet as runway 12 and 6989 feet as runway 30. Runway 10/28 is also a hard-surfaced, lit runway without an ILS, measuring 6261 feet as runway 10 and 4747 feet as runway 28. Field elevation is 118 feet.
Pilots can expect to work Bilbao Approach on 120.7 MHz, the ATIS on 118.825 MHz, Bilbao Ground on 121.7 MHz and Bilbao Tower on 118.5 MHz. An ILS is available for runway 12, supporting instrument approaches to the longer of the two runways.
Aeronautical activity in the province of Biscay began to be organised from October 1927, when the Union of Public Works took the first steps towards establishing an airport for Bilbao, and a provincial board was subsequently formed to study possible sites. It was not until 1936 that the General Aeronautics Management authorised construction of an airport at Sondika. Progress was slow, and the airport did not open for daytime traffic until 19 September 1948, when Aviación y Comercio SA established an air route to Madrid. A terminal named Carlos Haya, after a well-known Bilbao pilot, began operating two years later. Traffic grew steadily over the following decades, and the older terminal, though renewed only a few years earlier, was already saturated and outdated by 1990. Bilbao became firmly established as the leading air hub of northern Spain, with passenger numbers boosted further by growing tourist interest in the city following the opening of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. A new terminal, designed by architect Santiago Calatrava and resembling a dove taking flight, opened in 1999. The Great Recession interrupted growth in early 2009, with passenger numbers falling by around 24 percent that January compared with the previous year, but traffic recovered from 2014 onward, reaching 5.4 million passengers by 2018 and 6,336,441 passengers in 2023.
Bilbao operates as a major international airport, serving as the main base for Volotea and the second most important base for Vueling, with principal domestic links to Madrid and Barcelona and international connections to cities including London, Munich and Paris. Public opening hours run from 5:00 am to midnight, with the airport closed overnight to arriving traffic; travellers may remain within the rent-a-car area of the general parking building overnight, though this area is unstaffed after midnight.
