| Lleida–Alguaire Airport | |
| Nativename: | Aeroport Lleida-Alguaire |
| Image2-Width: | 250 |
| Iata: | ILD[1] |
| Icao: | LEDA |
| Pushpin Map: | Spain Catalonia |
| Pushpin Map Caption: | Location of the airport within Catalonia |
| Pushpin Label: | ILD |
| Pushpin Label Position: | right |
| Type: | Public |
| Owner: | Generalitat of Catalonia |
| Operator: | Aeroports de Catalunya |
| City-Served: | Andorra and Lleida |
| Location: | Alguaire, Catalonia, Spain |
| Elevation-F: | 1148 |
| Elevation-M: | 350 |
| Coordinates: | 41.7278°N 0.5358°W |
| Metric-Rwy: | y |
| R1-Number: | 13/31 |
| R1-Surface: | Asphalt |
Lleida–Alguaire Airport (Catalan: Aeroport de Lleida-Alguaire, Spanish: Aeropuerto de Lérida-Alguaire) is an airport located in Alguaire, Catalonia, Spain; about 15km (09miles) from the centre of Lleida and about 150km (90miles) from the centre of Barcelona.
Lleida–Alguaire was designed as a regional airport to provide both passenger and cargo transport to Western Catalonia (the Ponent region and Catalan Pyrenees), Andorra and some counties (comarques) in La Franja.[2] The airport construction project had a budget of 130 million euro and it was the first airport built and owned by the Generalitat of Catalonia, via its public-capital company Aeroports de Catalunya. It is also one of the few Spanish airports not owned by Aena.
The original plan intended for the full redevelopment of the already existing Alfés aerodrome located south of Lleida but due to pressure from ecologist groups this plan never materialised. It was later decided to locate the airport north of the city next to the future A-14 highway because of its convenience. Together the airport and the highway, which ends abruptly a few kilometres north of the airport, have caused endless amounts of controversy over the years as locals consider both projects as fake promises and embezzlement of public funds.
The airport was inaugurated on the 17 of January 2010 with the arrival of an Airbus A320 from Barcelona operated by Vueling, onboard traveled members of the Catalan authorities and the press.
Since then, following the success from other spanish airports like Teruel Airport, Lleida-Alguaire has been working to position itself as an aircraft maintenance and aircraft storage facility, as well as cooperating with both public and private research projects. In recent years, the airport has also gained popularity as a flight training location.
Colors = id:gray value:gray(0.5) id:line1 value:gray(0.9) id:line2 value:gray(0.7) ScaleMajor = start:0 increment:1 gridcolor:line2ScaleMinor = start:0 increment:1 gridcolor:line1 PlotData= color:blue width:20 bar:2010 from:start till:6.2 bar:2011 from:start till:3.3 bar:2012 from:start till:3.3 bar:2013 from:start till:2.9 bar:2014 from:start till:3.0 bar:2015 from:start till:3.0 bar:2016 from:start till:3.3 | |
| Updated: 8 March 2018. |
The following table shows total passenger numbers at Lleida–Alguaire Airport from 2010 to date.
| Year | Passengers (thousands) | |
|---|---|---|
| 2010 | 62 | |
| 2011 | 33 | |
| 2012 | 33 | |
| 2013 | 29 | |
| 2014 | 30 | |
| 2015 | 30 | |
| 2016 | 33 | |
| Source: Aeroports de Catalunya | ||
Two new highways, the Autovías A-14 and A-22, provide road access to the airport.