Dublin Airport Celebrates Its 75th Birthday Today

Dublin Airport is celebrating its 75th birthday today.

The airport opened for business on Friday, January 19, 1940 with a single flight to Liverpool’s Speke Airport. Shortly after 9am, an Aer Lingus Lockheed 14 aircraft took off from the grass runway close to the original passenger terminal, which was still being built at that time.

With war raging throughout Europe, the airport was effectively mothballed for the next five years. Dublin Airport’s only service was to Liverpool or occasionally to Manchester’s Barton Aerodrome. Aer Lingus had been operating from Baldonnel from 1936 and had moved its operations to the new Dublin Airport in January 1940.

Dublin Airport’s first scheduled service to London commenced in November 1945, with a two and a half hour direct flight to Croydon Airport and air mail services were added in 1946. Connections to other British cities and continental European destinations were added and in April 1958, Dublin Airport got its first scheduled transatlantic service to New York.

“This is a historic day for Dublin Airport and for all of us at daa,” said Chief Executive Kevin Toland. “Dublin Airport has proudly served the travelling public and the Irish nation for seven and a half decades and has been witness to many historic moments during that time.”

Dublin Airport Managing Director Vincent Harrison said the airport was established to connect Ireland with the world and 75 years on it is still fulfilling that original goal. “In the 75 years since that inaugural flight, Dublin Airport has welcomed 435 million passengers, boosting Irish trade, tourism and investment and bringing together generations of families and friends.”

To mark Dublin Airport’s 75th birthday there be 1940s and 1950s themed music in both terminals today. An exhibition charting the airport’s 75 years has also been installed in Terminal 1 and will be open to the public throughout the year.

Dublin Airport will also be celebrating its birthday on social media throughout 2015, sharing photographs, memories and facts under the #DUB75 hashtag. “We’ll be using our 75th birthday to remind people of the history of Dublin Airport and the vital role that it has played over the past 75 years,” Harrison said.

Work at Dublin Airport, which was originally known as Collinstown Airport, began in 1937 after the site was selected as the location for the capital’s new civilian airport. Collinstown had been a base for the British Royal Air Force before the creation of the Irish Free State in 1922, but the old military airfield had fallen into disrepair by the late 1930s.

The centrepiece of the new airport was its passenger terminal, which was designed by Desmond FitzGerald and a team of young architects. The original terminal, which was designed to cater for up to 100,000 passengers per year, won several architectural awards. Its tiered design, viewing decks and balconies are reminiscent of an ocean liner, which was a common theme for airports of the 1930s.

FitzGerald’s terminal was the key passenger facility at Dublin Airport until the early 1970s and part of the original terminal is still use today as a boarding gate area. “The designers of the old terminal should be praised for creating a wonderful modern facility that passengers enjoyed for many decades and that remains an icon of the early days of Irish commercial aviation,” Mr Harrison said.

Initially, air travel was the preserve of the wealthy. But with growing incomes and additional routes, passenger numbers increased and by 1963, Dublin Airport’s passenger numbers had exceeded one million in a single year for the first time.

In the 1950s and 1960s the airport was a destination in its own right, as people travelled out to Collinstown to see the planes and to dine in its restaurant, which was said to be one of the best in the country. Guided tours of the airport were popular and Dublin Airport featured regularly in postcards of the time.

Dublin Airport Timeline

1936 – Irish Government announces plans for civilian airport at Collinstown
1938 – Work begins on the new terminal building
1940 – Dublin Airport opens with one flight per day to Liverpool
1945 – First Dublin Airport-London service begins to Croydon
1947 – KLM starts Dublin-Manchester-Amsterdam service
1948 – Completion of concrete runways
1949 – Passenger numbers reach 200,000 per year
1958 – First scheduled transatlantic service as passenger numbers top 500,000 per year
1959 – North Terminal opens
1963 – Welcomes more than 1 million passengers
1972 – Terminal 1 opens
1989 – Passenger numbers reach 5 million
1990 – Celebrates 50th birthday
1997 – Welcomes more than 10 million passengers
2008 – Passenger numbers reach a record 23.5 million
2010 – Terminal 2 opens
2014 – Welcomes 21.7 million passengers
2015 – Celebrates 75th birthday