GSE: Gothenburg City Airport (Sweden)

Gothenburg City Airport is located 15km northwest of Gothenburg on the "hisingen" island. This airport is actually rather unique as being closer to the city centre than the main "Gothenburg Landvetter Airport", one of the few city airports that Ryanair fly to. Formerly established in 1940 as Air Force Base F9, also famous for it's huge underground hangar, (more info at http://www.aeroseum.se) The Airforce Base was closed in the 70´s and when old "Gothenburg Torslanda Airport" was closed and the new "Gothenburg Landvetter Airport" opened in 1976 they decided to move all general aviation flights to this airport. The name of the airport was then "Säve Flygplats" and housed all general aviation flights and a small helicopter squadron, in 1984 the airport was upgraded to international standards and the runway was extended. In 2001 Ryanair launched Gothenburg City - London Stansted 3xdaily. In 2002 the name was changed to "Gothenburg City Airport" and since then it has grown steadily and is now Swedens fastest growing airport and the 7th largest airport in Sweden. In 2000 the airport had around 5000 passengers, and in 2007 around 744000 passengers. The airlines that fly to City Airport is Ryanair, Air Berlin and Wizzair. Germanwings also had a service in 2006 to Cologne which was later dropped.

The airport is very basic as most low cost airports, and can be rather crowded at peak times, because of the proximity to the city centre the flights movement is limited to maximum 58000 movements/year (all aircrafts included). The majority of the movements are made by general aviation aircraft.

The Airport also launched this info-video in May: http://www.cityairport.se/video.asp

The airport website:
http://www.goteborgairport.se

The runway:
Dimensions: 2039m x 45m
Orientation: 01/19
ILS CAT I

The Terminal:
- 6 Check-in desks
- 3 Boarding gates
- 1 Arrival hall
- 1 departure hall
- 3 shops (2 in departures) + 1 Restaurant and 1 Bar in the departures.

Ryanair destinations:
- London Stansted 3 x Daily
- Frankfurt Hahn 1 x Daily
- Dublin 3 x Weekly
- Madrid 2 x Weekly
- Glasgow Prestwick 5 x Weekly
- Alicante 3 x Weekly
- Barcelona Girona 3 x Weekly
- Milano Bergamo 3 x Weekly
- Marseille 2 x Weekly
- Salzburg 1 x Weekly (during winter only)
- Bremen 2 x Weekly (from 29th October) NEW!!

Other airlines destinations:
Wizzair:
- Gdansk 3 x Weekly
- Warsaw 4 x Weekly
- Budapest 3 x Weekly

Air Berlin:
- Berlin (Tegel) 1 x Daily except saturdays (possible to fly to 14 other destinations via Berlin)

Transport:
Airportbus service to Gothenburg City Centre, departs from City Centre 140 mins before each flights departure and departs from City Airport after each flights arrival, approx journey time 25 mins and the fare is 60sek for adults.
Several rental car companies are also present at the airport, Hertz, Europcar, Avis and Sixt has offices there.


One of the departure gates during boarding for Ryanair FR9838 to Frankfurt Hahn.


The 6 checkin desks and the information to the right.


The apron.


The terminal, built in 2001, extended in 2007.


Ryanair B737-800


The car-rental desks and the information, nowadays also contains car-rental signs.

rgds/ don_salvatore87

Wow, how things have changed!

After my trip there on the 15th November 2005, my lasting memory was.....

When the Stewardess arrived from the aircraft into the terminal to start boarding, she told the Ground Staff it was OK to start boarding.

Not sure the Ground Staff was too ok with speaking English and he motioned to her to make the boarding announcement in English, which she did.

"Ladies and Gents, Flight Ryanair blah blah blah, now boarding through gate........." Cue Stewardess looking round, shrugging shoulders and asking Ground Staff "Whats the gate number?" Ground crew shrugged his shoulders and said "It's the only gate we have!"

Cue confused Stewardess saying over the PA "The only departure gate."

My friends and I killing ourselves laughing and the Stewardess saying to us "Well, it's the only thing that came into my head." and smiled.

Hahaha, I know, it was small back then and it's still rather small today. That has happened to me too when I'm doing the boardings that the Cabin Crew ask me which gate it is during the announcement and I say "One" haha Big difference compared to STN with gates like "47".

Very basic airport though, and not the best looking but it works....

A picture taken before the terminal extension: