Southampton Airport…

Southampton Airport  is the 20th largest airport in the United Kingdom, located in Eastleigh near Southampton. Southampton Airport is owned by BAA plc. CAA statistics state that Southampton Airport handled in excess of 1.8 million passengers during 2005. In 1936 the first test flights of the Supermarine Spitfire were conducted at the Southampton Airport, an event commemorated in 2004 with the erection of a near-full size sculpture of a Mk V Spitfire at the road entrance. On March 5th, 2006 at 16:30 GMT, five restored Spitfires took off from Southampton Airport to commemorate the seventieth anniversary of the first flight the of the Spitfire at the precise same time as the test flights in 1936 here are plans supported by the local council to rename the Southampton Airport after RJ Mitchell, designer of the Spitfire. However, the choice whether to rename the Southampton Airport lies with BAA. Southampton Airport is served by a dedicated mainline railway station with a fast and frequent service. It has the closest mainline railway station to a terminal building in the UK. The Southampton Airport is also located close to the junction between the M3 motorway and M27 motorway giving easy road access to Southampton, Winchester, Bournemouth, Portsmouth and places in between.