History of Stansted Airport
Stansted airport began life in 1942 during the Second World War and many D Day bombers took off from Stansted heading for the beaches of Normandy. The airport remained under military control until 1966 when the British airport authority took over. The government proposed a third airport to serve London and Stansted with plenty of scope for future expansion was chosen. However, fierce opposition and a Public Enquiry lasting 258 days did not see the airport given the go ahead until 1985 when a compromise was reached with an initial cap of 15 million passengers.
The Queen eventually opened the airport in 1991 with its new terminal and runway
increasing the passengers to 8 million.
In 1999, Parliament raised the cap to increase passengers by 185,000 a year and in 2002 the greenlight was given to expand to 25 million passengers.
In 2006 BAA was taken over by Ferrovial and they have continued the expansion and investment.
Stansted is now the third busiest airport in the UK with 24 million passengers in 2006. This growth has been driven by the low cost operators Ryanair who established its UK base at Stansted.
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