Royal Air Force Ringway or more simply RAF Ringway is a former Royal Air Force satellite station in Ringway, Cheshire, England, near Manchester. It was operational from 1939 until 1957. The site of the station is now occupied by Manchester Airport.

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Manchester's first municipal airfield was Manchester (Wythenshawe) Aerodrome (open from April 1929), and then Barton Aerodrome (open from January 1930) just west of Eccles. Barton Aerodrome was planned to be the main airport for Manchester, but it became clear by 1934 that its small boggy grass airfield was inadequate for the larger airliners then coming into service including the Douglas DC-2 and DC-3.

A new airport site at Ringway, eight miles south of Manchester city centre, was selected from several alternatives, and this was to become the site of the RAF station by early 1940. Construction of the all-grass airfield began in late 1935, and the first (westerly) portion opened in June 1937 for use by Fairey Aviation. The remaining airfield areas and the terminal building were opened for public use on 25 June 1938. Initially known as Manchester (Ringway) Airport, then Manchester International Airport, from 1986 it has been designated simply Manchester Airport.

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1928 - Barton, near Eccles, is chosen as the site of Manchester's new aerodrome. At the same time, Manchester City Council is keen to establish a municipal airport, so a temporary airfield is built in Wythenshawe

1929 - Wythenshawe Airport opens for business

1930 - Barton Aerodrome is completed. The aerodrome includes a control tower and large hangar (both of which still stand today).

1934 - Discussions open with KLM on a Holland to North of England service. Barton Aerodrome is considered unsuitable for larger aircraft and the necessary improvements would be prohibitively expensive. As a result, land at Ringway, south of Manchester, is ear-marked for a new airport.

1935 - Building work at Ringway commences

1938 - Ringway Airport is officially opened on 25th June. Operations begin at the airport two days later. In its first 14 months, the airport handles 7,600 passengers - the equivalent of a summer morning's work today!

1939-45 - On 1st September, the last scheduled aeroplane flies before the outbreak of the Second World War. Ringway Airport goes on to become a hub of wartime engineering activity, as an aircraft manufacturing centre for Fairey Aviation and Avro. Runway and airport facilities are enhanced with three new runways and ten new hangars. The airport also acts as a training centre for over 60,000 parachutists.

1946 - Peacetime passenger services begin

1947 - Passenger numbers triple to more than 34,000 a year

1949 - Extended terminal facilities open in the converted wartime building

1951 - The main runway is extended from 1,280 metres to 1,798 metres

1952 - The airport starts 24-hour operations and now handles 163,000 passengers every year

1953 - Sabena (Belgian Airlines) introduces the first scheduled service to New York

1954 - The airport records its millionth passenger since the Second World War

1955 - The first inclusive tour flight begins to Ostend

1962 - HRH the Duke of Edinburgh opens the new £2.7 million terminal. The terminal is truly innovative; the first in Europe to incorporate a 'pier' system, in which passengers remain under cover until ready to board the aircraft.

1969 - The runway is extended to 2,745 metres. This allows aircraft to take off with a full payload and fly non-stop to Canada.

1974 - A new inter-continental pier, capable of handling Boeing 747s, opens for business. The new intercontinental pier features numerous innovations, including travellators, waiting lounges and air conditioning. For the first time, ‘air bridges’ connect passengers direct to the aircraft.

1978 - 15 scheduled airlines operate flights to 37 destinations in the UK, Europe and North America. Over 100 companies operate at the airport, employing more than 5,000 people.

1980 - For the first time, passengers numbers top more than half a million in a single month.

1981 - The runway is extended by 244 metres to 3,048 metres, in order to attract long-haul flight operators.

1986 - The World Freight Terminal opens

1987 - Passengers top 1 million a month for the first time

1988 - Manchester Airport celebrates its Golden Jubilee

1989 - HRH the Princess of Wales opens the new Domestic Terminal. The new terminal includes dedicated check-in and car parking facilities.

1990 - The airport launches its 'Towards a Better Environment' programme, aimed at minimising the airport's impact on the local community

1991 - Manchester publishes its new 'Development Strategy for the year 2005', including plans for a 21st Century airport, designed to handle 30 million passengers a year by 2005, complete with proposals for a second runway.

1992 - The Aviation Viewing Park opens

1993 - Terminal 2 is opened by HRH the Duke of Edinburgh, doubling terminal capacity to around 20 million passengers a year. A new railway station is opened in May, providing direct links to many towns and cities in the North of England.

1995 - Annual passenger numbers reach 15 million

1997 - Approval is granted for the building of the second runway and work begins. The new runway opens in February 2001. Manchester is still the only airport outside of London with two full length runways.

2000 - Work starts on the £60 million Integrated Public Transport Interchange, to include a new bus, coach and train station. It opens for passengers in 2004, giving passengers onward connections to many major UK cities. The Government also gives the go-ahead for a £289 million Metrolink tram line extension to the Airport.

2001 - Manchester Airport completes the purchase of East Midlands Airport

2002 - Manchester Airport welcomes athletes from around the world to the Commonwealth Games, hosted in Manchester

2003 - Manchester Airport’s bid to house one of the retired Concorde fleet is successful. The aircraft, G-BOAC, went on display in the Aviation Viewing Park in Spring 2004, before being moved to its new £1million home, the Concorde Conference Centre, in 2008.

2005 - The airport handles 22 million passengers in a year for the first time

2007 - Building work begins on a major refurbishment of Terminal One. Meanwhile, runway markings are changed to '05-23' from '06-24' to account for changes to the earth’s magnetic field.

2008 - The airport sees one of its busiest weeks as Zenit St Petersburg and Glasgow Rangers fans travel to Manchester for the UEFA Cup Final. Just a week later 25,000 Manchester United fans fly out to Moscow to see their team take on Chelsea in the UEFA Champions League Final. Manchester Airport marks its 70th anniversary on June 25th 2008.

2009 - £80 million of terminal improvements are opened across the three terminals in July 2009. Shortly afterwards on the 22nd October, Emirates, officially opens a new luxurious lounge for its premium passengers and frequent flyers. In November, the airport begins to trial Imaging Technology, also known as body scanning, in Terminal 2.

2010 – Manchester welcomed the A380, the world’s biggest aircraft that now operates 3 daily flights between Manchester and Dubai.

2013 - Manchester Airport celebrated its 75th birthday.

2013 – MAG purchased London Stansted and became the UK’s largest airport operator.

2013 – Manchester Airport’s new control tower opened.

2013 – Airport City Manchester was granted planning approval.

2014 – Cathay Pacific launched a four times a week direct service from Manchester to Hong Kong.

2014 – Manchester Airport Metrolink route launched.

2015 – Manchester Airport unveiled a 10 year transformation programme: MAN-TP.

2015 - Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Manchester Airport with David Cameron.

2016 - A range of new routes launched in 2016, including significant long haul destinations that can only be flown directly from Manchester and London. These include Hainan Airlines’ direct service to Beijing, Thomas Cook Airlines' new routes to Boston and Los Angeles, and Singapore Airlines’ new direct flights to Houston.

2016 - Air France celebrated its 70th anniversary flying from Manchester in June, confirming its position as the airport’s longest serving airline.

2016 - Virgin Atlantic celebrated 20 years flying from Manchester in July

2016 – Manchester Airport experienced its busiest ever Christmas period, with 22% year on year growth.

2017 – Virgin Atlantic and Thomas Cook Airlines launch flights to San Francisco

2017 – Work commences on the Manchester Airport Transformation Programme

2017 – Airport celebrates its busiest day with more than 107,000 passengers passing through the three terminals

2018 - Manchester Airport celebrates its 80th birthday by releasing a special birthday video featuring Manchester poet Tony Walsh, AKA Longfella

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Manchester Airport History

Manchester Airport transports 27 million visitors every year, but as we all make our way through security and on to duty-free and the gates, it's easy to miss Manchester's rich history. For example...

Did you know that its original site was in Barton and when the new site at Ringway was complete, the Duke of Edinburgh opened it?

While we were enjoying the pop hits of the Spice Girls and Blur, we were also falling in love with holidays and Terminal 2 was being built to accommodate the extra travellers.

Fun Facts about Manchester Airport

• By handling 27 million visitors a year, Manchester is the 3rd busiest Airport in the UK.

• It's home to more than 60 airlines serving over 200 worldwide destinations.

• The airport employs around 22,000 people on site, whilst supporting an additional 45,000 jobs in the North West of England.

• On average every year, 40,000 bottles of champagne, 1.5 million bottles of water and 1.8 million books are purchased from the airport.

• Just outside the airport grounds, they have 3 bat barns, a mammal tunnel and badger setts, as well as around 92 ponds full of amphibian wildlife, all of which they have had constructed for wildlife preservation.

Manchester's first 75+ Years in operation

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• In 1928, it was decided that Barton would be the chosen space for an aerodrome, and by 1930, construction was complete.

• After 4 years, it was decided that the space was too small, so work started on the Ringway site, and on 25th June 1938, the second site was opened. This is what would become Manchester Airport.

• During the war, Ringway Airport became an aircraft manufacturing centre and acted as a parachutist training hub. They also had an additional 3 runways added.

• After peacetime passenger services resumed, 1947 saw the number of travellers almost triple in size to 34,000! This led to the expansion of terminal facilities that were built within the converted wartime building.

• By 1954, the airport had started 24-hour operation, extended the main runway further and seen its 1 millionth passenger since the war!

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• In 1962, HRH The Duke of Edinburgh opened the new £2.7 million Terminal, which saw Manchester implement the first ‘pier’ system in a European Airport - meaning passengers could actually remain undercover until their flight!

• Passenger numbers increased so steadily that by 1980, another pier system was built meaning they could handle Boeing 747s, another extension to the runway was completed and the Airport welcomed half a million passengers a month!

• As the Airports' Golden Jubilee approached in 1988, they had already opened the World Freight Terminal, had another extension to the main runway and were now seeing over 1 million travellers a month; the ever-growing popularity of Manchester Airport meant that it was time for a new terminal - and so in 1989, HRH The Princess of Wales opened the new Domestic Terminal - complete with parking and dedicated check-in services.

• Given the success of the Airport, Terminal 2 was built and opened in 1993 to accommodate the ever-rising amount of travellers Manchester was handling; this figure peaked at 15 million annually by 1995, meaning plans for a second runway were put into place - this was constructed less than 4 years later.

• By 2005, the £5.5 million upgrade to Terminal 1 was complete and work was ready to start on Terminal 2. They had also finished constructing a new Public Transport Interchange - meaning travellers could easily connect to several other large cities in the UK - and were now handling 22 million passengers a year!

• Building works commenced in 2009 for the new educational centre and in November of that year, the Airport started trialling a new technology - now known as Body Scanners.

• By 2015, Manchester Airport had acquired the London City, Bournemouth and East Midlands Airports, Making MAG (Manchester Airport Group) is the 3rd largest group in the UK, after more than 75 years of operation.

• 2015 also crowned Manchester Airport as the 'Best Airport in the UK' by the Globe Travel Awards.

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