Qualla: City of Derry Airport

City of Derry Airport: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ddoherty958, CC BY-SA 4.0. There is a railway line that runs along the eastern shore of Lough Foyle, single track, from Belfast to Derry. At one point near Eglinton it skirts the end of a runway so closely that the airport has had to install a signalling system: no train can pass while an aircraft is taking off or landing. The aircraft are usually small - turboprops to Glasgow, occasionally a Ryanair 737 to Manchester or Birmingham. The trains are usually local. But the proximity is the airport in miniature: a working facility tucked into a tight corner of Ulster, running on slim margins, holding on year after year because losing it would cut off the entire northwest of Ireland from quick air travel.

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Image: Ddoherty958 | CC BY-SA 4.0

City of Derry Airport: From RNAS Eglinton to EGAE

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bexvenx, CC BY-SA 4.0. The site was a Royal Naval Air Station during the Second World War, known as RNAS Eglinton, used in the Battle of the Atlantic to fly Fleet Air Arm fighters that escorted convoys from the deepwater port at Derry. After the war it became a NATO base during the Cold War's North Atl...

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Image: Bexvenx | CC BY-SA 4.0

City of Derry Airport: The £10 Million Upgrade

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ddoherty958, CC BY-SA 4.0. From 1989 to 1993 the council undertook a major redevelopment with European Regional Development Fund support, spending £10.5 million on runways, taxiways, access roads, navigation equipment, lighting, a purpose-built terminal, and a new fire station. The terminal opened in March...

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Image: Ddoherty958 | CC BY-SA 4.0

City of Derry Airport: The Carousel of Carriers

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit NorthernCounties, CC BY 3.0. The story of City of Derry Airport since 2010 reads like an air-transport carousel: routes appear, disappear, return under different airline brands, vanish again. Ryanair axed Alicante and Birmingham in 2014, Faro in 2016, London Stansted in 2017. Flybmi took over Stansted with 1...

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Image: NorthernCounties | CC BY 3.0

City of Derry Airport: Why It Survives

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ddoherty958, CC BY-SA 4.0. Derry is roughly 65 miles from Belfast International, 70 miles from Belfast City, and 130 miles by road from Dublin. For travellers in the northwest of Ireland - both Northern Ireland counties and the Republic's Donegal - City of Derry is by far the most convenient airport. The N...

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Image: Ddoherty958 | CC BY-SA 4.0