The airport was built in 1965, but passenger traffic was modest. The early 2000s saw passenger numbers grow spectacularly after Ryanair chose Girona as one of its European hubs. In 1993, Girona Airport dealt with only 275,000 passengers; in the six years from 2002 to 2008 passenger numbers increased by nearly ten times from just over 500,000 to more than 5.5 million, but half of these were lost again in the next 4 years until 2012 with only 2.8 million passengers. 2014 saw less than 2.2 million passengers pass through the airport. In 2016 it carried just 1.6 million passengers.
Facilities
The airport consists of one two-storey passenger terminal building. On the ground floor there are 33 check-in desks, with 11 boarding gates on the first floor for both domestic and international flights. Food is available in the departures area of the airport, as well as a few shops.
The following airlines operate regular scheduled and charter flights to and from Girona:
Statistics
The following table shows the total passenger numbers at Girona Airport from 1997 to date.
Ground transportation
Along with being an alternative option to Barcelona Airport, Girona Airport is convenient for the resorts along the Costa Brava, such as Lloret de Mar, l'Estartit and Blanes. It is about a 40-minute drive from the French border and many people use Girona Airport as a way of getting to the Pyrenees and the ski resorts of Andorra.
The closest main line railway station to the airport is in Girona. The closest railway station is in fact Riudellots Halt, away from the airport. There is a project to build a station for the AVE line LGV Perpignan–Figueres, which passes within a few hundred meters of the terminal.
Incidents and accidents
On 14 September 1999, at 21:47 UTC, a Boeing 757–204charter flight from Cardiff, Wales, UK, with 236 passengers and 9 crew left the runway when landing in a storm and broke apart. After leaving the runway, it ran across flat grassland beside the runway, before going diagonally over a substantial earth mound adjacent to the airport boundary, becoming semi-airborne as a result. Beyond the mound it hit and severed a number of medium-sized trees and the right engine struck the boundary fence. The aircraft then yawed considerably to the right, passed through the fence, landed again in a field, and its main landing gears collapsed. It finally stopped after a slide across the field. Damage was substantial: the fuselage was broken in two places and the landing gear and both engines detached. Remarkably, there were no immediate fatalities but 44 people, including the aircraft's captain, received hospital treatment for severe to minor injuries. One elderly passenger died a week later.
