Early years Opened in 1938, when it replaced the old airfield at
Fen Ditton, the airport is owned and operated by
Marshall Aerospace, a Cambridge-based company with many years' history servicing
civilian and military contracts. The main building, which is a Grade II
listed building, was designed by the architect
Harold Tomlinson of the University of Cambridge and constructed in 1936–37. For many years it was the base for the
Cambridge University Air Squadron. During the
Second World War the site was used by the
Royal Air Force as
RAF Cambridge. The following units were here at some point: In October 2008, to coincide with the opening of the new Marshall Business Aviation Centre, the airport's name was changed from Cambridge City Airport to Marshall Airport Cambridge UK. The name was changed again to Cambridge Airport in 2011 as plans were announced for an expansion of the airport following the installation of instrument landing systems and new hangars. In 2012 the airport introduced charter flights to Italy as well as regular flights to the Channel Islands. These were the first scheduled flights from the airport since 2006. In mid 2013 the airport completed a £1m refurbishment of its passenger terminal to handle new international airline services and in March 2015
British Airways commenced daily scheduled services to
Gothenburg operated by franchise
Sun-Air of Scandinavia. Using 32 seat
Dornier 328JET aircraft, to begin with 20 seats were reserved by AstraZeneca in order to connect its two main European offices. Passenger services were reported as "to end on 31 January 2016", although British Airways/Sun-Air continued temporarily to operate flights from Cambridge to Gothenburg. Since 24 March 2016 tickets have not been available to the general public. As of November 2017 the flights now originate in Manchester with a brief stop in Cambridge. In November 2019 the local
FBO changed hands from
ExecuJet to
Cambridge Jet Centre which is managed by the Airport directly.
Prospective closure In May 2019,
Marshall Aerospace and Defence Group, owners of the airport, announced that the airport would be closed to all traffic by 2030 at the latest. The Group plans to redevelop the airport site for around 12,000 homes and of business premises. , the Group was deciding between three potential airfields for its continuing operations:
Duxford and
Wyton in Cambridgeshire, and
Cranfield in Bedfordshire. On 6 October 2020,
Cranfield University and MADG announced that they had signed an option agreement for the potential relocation of Marshall Aerospace and Defence Group (MADG) to
Cranfield Airport. A spokesperson for MADG cautioned that "the signing of the option agreement does not represent a final decision". ==Statistics==