In our increasingly interconnected world, many cities are now served by multiple airports.
While this helps give both incoming and outgoing passengers more options, there can sometimes
be a catch. Specifically, it is important to be aware that some airports are rather
a long way from the city that they serve. But which are the most distant? Let’s find
out.
Readers familiar with the French commercial aviation scene will know that several different
commercial airports serve Paris. Paris Charles de Gaulle and Paris Orly are not far from
the French capital, and are the two main options for full-service carriers and a few budget
airlines. However, those who have flown to quote-unquote Paris with Ryanair will have
experienced the more distant Beauvais–Tillé airport. However, despite being more than
80 km/50 miles away, this is not Paris’s most distant airport.
Indeed, sources list Châlons Vatry Airport as the most distant from the city that it
serves. Located around 160 km/100 miles from the French capital, driving to Paris itself
from Châlons Vatry takes more than two hours. This facility used to be a military base before
opening commercially in 2000. Today, Ryanair uses it for service to Morocco and Portugal.
Despite its distance from the French capital, the airport has been marketed unofficially
as Paris Vatry Airport. It has even also been referred to as Paris-Vatry (Disney). While
it is closer to this famous resort, it is still some 130km/80 miles away by road.
Europe has several airports that lie a considerable distance from the city they serve. The rise
of budget carriers across the continent like Ryanair, and Wizz Air has seen this increase.
These airlines aim to reduce operating costs by serving smaller, more distant facilities,
marketing these small airports as the major cities that they are distantly situated around.
You can find multiple instances of this in Germany. For example, airlines sometimes market
Memmingen Allgäu Airport as Munich West, despite it being some 120km/75 miles from
the Bavarian capital. Meanwhile, Frankfurt Hahn is further away from the city of Frankufrt
at around 125km/78 miles. Indeed, it is approximately equidistant between Frankfurt and Luxembourg!
Elsewhere on the continent, Scandinavia also houses several airports that require a long
drive to reach their named city. Stockholm alone has two such facilities: the airports
at Skavsta and Västerås, which are both around 105km/65 miles away. In neighboring
Norway, Oslo Torp Airport near Sandefjord is a 120 km/75 miles drive from the country’s
capital. Being a smaller country, the UK doesn’t
have quite such distant airports- even if Luton and Stansted already seem terribly far
away. However, there is one exception that beats these two.
London Oxford Airport is around 100 km/60 miles from the British capital, lying approximately
halfway between there and Birmingham. However, despite being marketed as London Oxford Airport,
this facility hasn’t seen airline service for several years, and is more likely to see
general aviation and business jet traffic instead.
Of course, Europe isn’t the only part of the world where you can find airports that
require a bit of a road trip to reach their named city. Indeed, head across the Atlantic
Ocean and you’ll find that even New York has one. Specifically, New York Stewart International
Airport lies some 115 km/71.5 miles north of the Big Apple by road.
Meanwhile, when it comes to Asia, Lonely Planet notes that even Kuala Lumpur’s primary airport
is still 67.5 km/42 miles from the Malaysian capital, while Tokyo Narita Airport is around
60 km/37 miles away from the heart of the world’s most populous metropolitan area,
requiring a 50-minute drive. What’s the most distant airport in relation
to the city that it serves that you’ve ever visited? And how long did it take you to get
to the city? Share your experiences with us by leaving a comment.