Spitfires, record skies and Dublin: Cornwall Airport’s July

There is a sound a Spitfire makes that you tend to feel before you hear it, and for eight days in July it rolled across the airfield at Cornwall Airport Newquay. That was the headline act. Around it, the month quietly turned into one of the busiest stretches the airport has had all year.

📷Credit: Cornwall Airport Newquay

A record month in the skies

Air traffic movements reached 2,684 in July, a jump of 55% on June. Passenger numbers climbed 14% over the same period, with 53,161 people passing through the terminal across the month. The load factor to Alicante hit 87%, a sign of how full the summer sun flights were running.

For an airport that trades on being a proper local one, it was a strong set of figures, and the busiest skies came with a soundtrack. Much of the extra traffic and the attention that came with it can be traced to one week at Cornwall Airport Newquay.

Spitfires and a Mustang over the fence

The aircraft that pulled the crowds were a pair of Spitfires and a P-51 Mustang, based at the aerodrome for the week while the airport hosted Fly a Spitfire together with Flynqy Pilot Training. For anyone who has only heard a Merlin engine in old films, hearing one throttle up from a few hundred metres away is a different thing entirely.

The airport marked the occasion by opening its first official viewing area, giving aviation enthusiasts the chance to watch the aircraft take off and land from right over the fence. You can read the airport’s own account in its write-up of the Spitfires flying from Cornwall Airport Newquay.

Destination of the month: Dublin

July’s featured route is Dublin. Aer Lingus flies to the Irish capital daily, with a 10kg bag included as standard, which takes some of the fuss out of a city break. The same connection also opens onward routes to the United States for anyone carrying on west, and Ryanair runs additional services on the route.

If Dublin is new to you, travel writer Eleanor McGillie has put together a guide to a first trip to the city, with the must-see spots, a few hidden gems and the sort of insider tips you only pick up once you have been. Eleanor’s picks lean towards the things a quick visit tends to skip.

The Dublin flight goes daily. The Spitfires, for now, have moved on.

📷Aerial view on the channel part of Dublin near the port at autumn