Party at Eindhoven airport: the airport celebrates its 90th anniversary this month. Omroep Brabant delved into the rich history. From Philips’ own flight service to the mill that camouflaged the control tower during the war. The airport grew from just a grass runway in the beginning to an airport with millions of travelers now.
As early as the 1920s, people lobbied for their own airport in Eindhoven, and on September 10, 1932, the big day finally arrived: Welschap airport was festively opened by the Minister of Transport, Public Works and Water Management. The official opening was announced on posters with: ‘The south will be released from its isolation’. In the beginning, the runway was little more than a grass runway.
A few years after the opening, KLM’s first scheduled flights arrived and you could fly from Welschap to cities such as Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Groningen.
During World War II, the Luftwaffe took possession of the airfield and renamed it Fliegerhorst Eindhoven. The control tower was camouflaged by the Germans as a mill.
Hercules disaster
In 1944 the airfield was liberated. After that it has always been a military base. After the war there were mainly British and Canadian units. In 1952 the airbase was taken over by the Royal Netherlands Air Force, which stationed fighter jets there until the 1990s.
Henceforth, defense used the airport for transports and military transport aircraft came here. The low point in the history of the airport was the crash of a Hercules C-130 transport plane in 1996, better known as the Hercules disaster. 34 soldiers were killed.
Eindhoven Air Base has always been a special airport because others were also allowed to use the airport, such as Philips. For years, the company even had its own flight service at the air base. KLM also used the airport and there were scheduled services within the Netherlands and to London again.
Move
The airport caused noise nuisance and that is why a move was made in 1984. A new airport with a new runway was built elsewhere. The Meerhoven residential area was later built on the old site. The original airport building with the control tower has been preserved and is a reminder of the district’s history.
Eindhoven Airport also opened its doors at the new location in 1984: an airport with an arrival and departure hall, aimed at civilian flights. Only small aircraft up to fifty seats flew there. The airport uses the defense runway. The control tower, fire brigade, meteorological service and bird watch are also military.
The scheduled flights from Eindhoven Airport initially went to Amsterdam, Hamburg, Paris and London. They were only business flights, almost always for Philips. Remarkable in this time: on Saturday and Sunday the airport was closed.
At the end of the eighties, the first holiday flight from Eindhoven Airport to Mallorca came from Neckermann. The arrival of Ryanair airline to Eindhoven in 2002 was a major boost for other airlines.
In the first year in 1984, 108,000 travelers made use of Eindhoven Airport. In record year 2019, even before corona, there were 6.7 million travelers. It is now the largest regional airport in the Netherlands.
• Expected in 2022: between 5 and 6 million passengers.
• Expected future: 7 million passengers per year. This is only possible with larger aircraft because the number of flight movements will not increase in the coming years.
• Number of destinations in 1984: four. Now: about 85.
• In winter: about 300 departing and 300 arriving flights per week.
• In summer: 400-450 departing and arriving flights per week.