Nonstop flight route between Fairford, England, United Kingdom and Galway, Ireland:

About this route:

A direct, nonstop flight between RAF Fairford (FFD), Fairford, England, United Kingdom and Galway Airport (GWY), Galway, Ireland would travel a Great Circle distance of 321 miles (or 516 kilometers).

A Great Circle is the shortest distance between 2 points on a sphere. Because most world maps are flat (but the Earth is round), the route of the shortest distance between 2 points on the Earth will often appear curved when viewed on a flat map, especially for long distances. If you were to simply draw a straight line on a flat map and measure a very long distance, it would likely be much further than if you were to lay a string between those two points on a globe. Because of the relatively short distance between RAF Fairford and Galway Airport, the route shown on this map most likely still appears to be a straight line.

Departure Airport Information:

Arrival Airport Information:

Facts about RAF Fairford (FFD):

• The closest airport to RAF Fairford (FFD) is RAF Brize Norton (BZZ), which is located only 10 miles (16 kilometers) ENE of FFD.
• Due to the deteriorating airfield facilities and its unique NATO heavy bomber mission, RAF Fairford underwent a $100 million upgrade of its runway and fuel systems in the largest NATO funded airfield construction project within a NATO country since the end of the Cold War.
• Royal Air Force Fairford or more simply RAF Fairford is a Royal Air Force station in Gloucestershire, England which is currently a standby airfield and therefore not in everyday use.
• The furthest airport from RAF Fairford (FFD) is Dunedin International Airport (DUD), which is located 11,898 miles (19,148 kilometers) away in Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand.
• RAF Fairford was constructed in 1944 to serve as an airfield for British and American troop carriers and gliders for the D-Day invasion of Normandy during World War II.
• Operations staff and maintenance personnel were permanently assigned, but aircraft, aircrews and crew chiefs were temporarily assigned to the 11th Strategic Group for the European Tanker Task Force on rotation.

Facts about Galway Airport (GWY):

• By 2007 Galway was officially the fastest growing airport in Ireland, fast exceeding international airports with passenger growth at 63% per annum at that time.
• The furthest airport from Galway Airport (GWY) is Ryan's Creek Aerodrome (SZS), which is located 11,976 miles (19,273 kilometers) away in Stewart Island, New Zealand.
• The closest airport to Galway Airport (GWY) is Connemara Airport (NNR), which is located 22 miles (36 kilometers) WSW of GWY.
• An additional "Development Fee" of €10 is charged to all departing passengers aged 12 years and over.
• Because of Galway Airport's relatively low elevation of 81 feet, planes can take off or land at Galway Airport at a lower air speed than at airports located at a higher elevation. This is because the air density is higher closer to sea level than it would otherwise be at higher elevations.
• In February 2012, workers at the airport staged a sit-in in protest at the risk that their redundancy payments might not materialise after the airport's bankers had seized its working capital.
• In addition to being known as "Galway Airport", another name for GWY is "Aerphort na Gaillimhe".
• Galway Airport (GWY) currently has only 1 runway.
• On 21 February 2007, the Government of Ireland announced that it was providing €6.3 million in capital grant money for Galway Airport.
• In 1994 Aer Arann began the Dublin route supported by the state funded Public Service Obligation scheme.
• In its hey-day, these were the busiest routes from Galway.