Departure
96%
vs 95% ▲ 1
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
A Coruña Airport (LECO/LCG) is the main gateway to Galicia's Atlantic coast, sited at Culleredo a few kilometres south of A Coruña city. It offers a single hard-surfaced runway with ILS guidance on one end, making it a straightforward destination for instrument or visual arrivals despite the hilly terrain nearby.
A Coruña Airport, historically known as Alvedro Airport, serves the Galician city of A Coruña in northwestern Spain. It is operated within the Aena network, with air traffic control provided by Ferronats. For a visiting simulator pilot it offers a single well-equipped runway with an ILS approach, set in terrain that required careful siting when the field was first built, making it an interesting approach to fly in variable Atlantic weather.
The airport lies in the municipality of Culleredo, roughly 7 kilometres from the centre of A Coruña. Approach control in the area is provided by Santiago APP on 120.2 MHz, reflecting the airport's position within the wider Galician terminal airspace shared with Santiago de Compostela to the south. Local ground and tower services are provided directly by A Coruña's own frequencies.
The airport has a single physical runway, 03/21, of hard surface construction and lit for night operations. The 03 threshold offers 7,655 feet of usable length, while the 21 threshold offers 7,168 feet and is equipped with an ILS, giving instrument approach capability from that direction.
Pilots should expect to work Santiago APP on 120.2 MHz for approach control in the area, then transfer to A Coruña's own frequencies: GND on 121.7 MHz and TWR on 118.3 MHz, the latter operating as A Coruña TWR. An ILS is available on runway 21 for instrument approaches.
The Spanish Council of Ministers ordered the urgent construction of an airport for A Coruña on 11 September 1953, the hilly topography and local weather having made earlier construction in the area difficult; until then the only air service to Galicia had been through Santiago de Compostela's Lavacolla Airport, which opened in 1935. The new field was built on the Alvedro plateau in Culleredo, beginning as a sparse airstrip before parking areas and a terminal were added. Radio and electrical monitoring facilities followed in 1961, a terminal building and runway lighting in 1962, and a services building in 1963. The airport formally opened to national commercial traffic in May 1963, with the inaugural flight arriving from Madrid on 25 May 1963 operated by Aviaco. Aviaco briefly ran a Vigo-A Coruña-Santander-San Sebastián-Barcelona service using Convair 440s in 1964 and again in 1971, but both attempts proved unprofitable and were withdrawn. Charter flights from Switzerland and England began arriving by the late 1960s. On 16 August 1973, Aviaco Flight 118 crashed while attempting to land at the airport, killing all 85 people aboard and one person on the ground. A customs office opened in 1979, and during the 1980s the runway gradient was adjusted by one degree twelve minutes and an Instrument Landing System was installed. An air traffic control room was added in 1990, and jet bridges together with a cargo terminal followed in 2001.
The airport is managed by Aena as part of its national network, with air traffic control provided by Ferronats. It currently operates with its single runway 03/21, supporting scheduled and charter services alongside general aviation movements. Onward development plans discussed in connection with the airport have included an upgrade of the ILS from Category II to Category III and further runway and parking improvements.