Pakenhamtrain
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Coming soon......maybe? The airport doesn't like the idea of losing carpark money so have stalled for ages
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Airports not served by rail
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Cheshire Scot
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Prestwick already just happened to have a station just a few hundred yards away serving the town but then had a dedicated station built only slightly closer.
Ronaldsway?
TravelDream
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Didn't realise the airport had so few passengers. Didn't Ryanair used to have quite a big operation there? It's a small one now. Still only 100k or so fewer than Southampton.
Prestwick, like Southampton, has the advantage of being already on a rail line with the terminal just next door.
I still wonder if Olsztyn is the smallest airport (142k passengers) with a dedicated rail link (only six trains a week).
The Liverpool one is not a dedicated bus link. The 80A and 86A both come from/ go to the city centre (via a very circuitous route) with the Parkway to Airport section being a small part of the overall route.
station_road
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Or Southend, with a dedicated station and trains every 20 minutes - 11 flights scheduled for today
Trivia: it used to be. Ferihegy station is just across the access road from what is now Terminal 1 which was still used by BA and Sabena in the early 90s (Malev and others had moved to Terminal 2 before 1990). Back then train services were very infrequent, taxis cheap and the bus even cheaper.
Ostrava came to mind, train every 4 hours, single digit flight departures daily.
In Spain, TramCamp is planned to serve Reus aiport and a new interchange where the coast LAV crosses Reus-Tarragona, if if the full network is ever built (only Vila Seca-Cambrils currently under construction).
Although the wires don't reach Chișinău airport (or Prague, I think).
This one is no great surprise, considering there are currently no railways in Iceland.
Kramfors-Sollefteå airport had a total of 11490 passengers last year. And has a station on the nearby railway. Although it's probably a 30 minute walk from the station to the airport. And the station has now been renamed to Västeraspby I think.
Indeed, almost no US airports are rail connected so I doubt they’d have an expectation of it and are more likely to drive.
TravelDream
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Just like Tees Valley, I wouldn't call a station 30 minutes away an airport station no matter what you call it.
Airport train stations are those adjacent to the terminal with a convenient access route.
I think a fair few of the majors in the US have public transport links using rails.
I dare say a clear majority of the 20+ million passenger ones do.
aron2smith
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Malta has no railways at all but last I saw a 3 line metro was planned, including a link to its airport.
FormerBritInMe
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In the US it is probably easier to list the ones that have rail (heavy or metro) links:
Atlanta Hartsfield - MARTA Red Line rapid transit
Baltimore - BWI has an Amtrak/MARC station, also light rail link
Boston - sort of, need a shuttle bus to get to the MBTA Blue Line station
Chicago - both airports connected to rapid transit (the "L")
Cleveland - red line, one of the first in the US
Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) - DART Light Rail
Denver
Los Angeles - under construction
Newark NJ - people mover connection to Amtrak/NJT Northeast Corridor
New York - JFK yes, LaGuardia a resounding no
Philadelphia - SEPTA Regional Rail
Providence RI (TF Green Airport) - Station on Amtrak Northeast Corridor but only commuter rail (MBTA/RIPTA) stops there
San Francisco - BART system
St. Louis - light rail
Seattle (Sea-Tac Airport) - light rail
Washington DC (both Reagan National and now Dulles) - WMATA rapid transit
I have probably missed a few
Atlanta Hartsfield - MARTA Red Line rapid transit
Baltimore - BWI has an Amtrak/MARC station, also light rail link
Boston - sort of, need a shuttle bus to get to the MBTA Blue Line station
Chicago - both airports connected to rapid transit (the "L")
Cleveland - red line, one of the first in the US
Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) - DART Light Rail
Denver
Los Angeles - under construction
Newark NJ - people mover connection to Amtrak/NJT Northeast Corridor
New York - JFK yes, LaGuardia a resounding no
Philadelphia - SEPTA Regional Rail
Providence RI (TF Green Airport) - Station on Amtrak Northeast Corridor but only commuter rail (MBTA/RIPTA) stops there
San Francisco - BART system
St. Louis - light rail
Seattle (Sea-Tac Airport) - light rail
Washington DC (both Reagan National and now Dulles) - WMATA rapid transit
I have probably missed a few
Rules out Manchester, esp. T3, and quite a few others.
TravelDream
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By airport, I mean any terminal of the airport. Obviously many airports won't meet the criteria if it means every terminal.
jamesontheroad
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CPT has a MyCiti (pseudo-BRT) station right outside arrivals, with buses every 20 minutes to the Civic Centre. Although the need for a proprietary bus card is a pain, the MyCiti bus network is safe, secure and tourist friendly.
Also (unless it's changed recently) O'Hare has a station on a heavy rail route, albeit not with a terribly frequent service.
dutchflyer
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One reason that may explain why so many seemingly small airports-and mostly in Eastern EURope- are that these used to be military airports and the fuel in the happy days of true comradeship with hammer&sickle etc. pre 1990 was in that planned economy favoured rail above freight on the very bad roads and thus had side-spurs or whatever came out most economic to deliver that precious stuff.
And yes-airports that appear much bigger as expected, like BGO=Bergamo, are indeed mostly that that Irish cheap flight provider-to the expense of having the long distance links with trains on rails became much slower, unreliable and expensive- settled a major hub there to serve a nearby big city-and may withdraw that also in whim if their wishes are not met enough in their perception.
If people are interested in it: also try to find out which of those newer airport raillinks also require ultra-expensive extra fares/surcharges/supplements or whatever they may call it. LIke f.e. BRUssels- where any entrance/exit requires an extra ´Diabolo´ surcharge to be paid-around 6€ I think now.
But to the new airport in BKK=Bangkok, Suvannaphumi, the much more expensive dedicated ´luxury´ faster service was withdrawn quite soon after the start as it was mostly moving hot air only.
And yes-airports that appear much bigger as expected, like BGO=Bergamo, are indeed mostly that that Irish cheap flight provider-to the expense of having the long distance links with trains on rails became much slower, unreliable and expensive- settled a major hub there to serve a nearby big city-and may withdraw that also in whim if their wishes are not met enough in their perception.
If people are interested in it: also try to find out which of those newer airport raillinks also require ultra-expensive extra fares/surcharges/supplements or whatever they may call it. LIke f.e. BRUssels- where any entrance/exit requires an extra ´Diabolo´ surcharge to be paid-around 6€ I think now.
But to the new airport in BKK=Bangkok, Suvannaphumi, the much more expensive dedicated ´luxury´ faster service was withdrawn quite soon after the start as it was mostly moving hot air only.
richard1976
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Belfast International has no rail link, think the nearest station is Antrim
Islineclear3_1
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What about Manston Airport? (in Kent). I believe there are plans to reopen it in 2028
Which boils down to how you define adjacent. But a candidate for smallest airport with train service is Friedrichshafen in southern Germany. It's 65 m from the platform the terminal and the airport had 340 000 passengers in 2022. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrichshafen_Airport
TravelDream
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I can't think of too many examples like that - though it's true there tend to be more rail lines in that part of the world.
In Poland's case...
Warsaw Airport had no rail link. One was constructed and opened in 2012 for the Euro 2012.
Krakow Airport had a rail link to its military zone, but that was fairly dilapidated and in disuse for quite a while. The line was rehabilitated and brought back into use commercially in 2006 under BaliceExpress. Though the platform was a fair walk from the terminal. The rail line closed again in 2014 and reopened in 2015 where the line was extended to the terminal and electrified. The spur to the military site still exists.
Katowice had no rail link sort of. There was an old dilapidated line near the airport which was closed. That was also rehabilitated and put back into service in 2023. A new train station was opened at the airport, but it's a little far from the terminal IMO. And the service doesn't service the city the airport is named after as they are still constructing part of the line and a railway junction.
Gdansk had no rail link. A new commuter line was built which serves the airport which opened in 2015.
Wroclaw has no rail link. The nearest line is about 2.5km away though there are tentative plans to look into building a spur to the airport.
Poznan has no rail link.
Olsztyn, in my example from above, had its rail link constructed 2014-15 to start operation in 2016. I still think it's wild such a small airport would have money invested in such a project.
Actually, writing this out really quite annoyed me. Poland has invested EU funds in things which have provided significant economic growth. OK, sometimes misguided, but many of these are built for the future as it were. If anyone visits Wroclaw, it's very obvious in the 'new' (almost 15 year old now) terminal that the terminal was built for the rail link. Even though it doesn't exist.
Every airport with more than 5 million passengers there has a rail link and the one below that has plans for one even if they are old plans that aren't currently being acted upon.
No that bus has been suspended since December 2022 and has still not returned. If you look on that link you sent it says that "Please note that the Airport service is temporarily suspended." so it seems that it has still not restarted. The only public transport is a 45 minute walk to a metrorail station and then a suburban train in to Cape Town city centre. This is what i did last time i was there. It is not very convenient walking 45 minutes with a suitcase but it was the only alternative to a taxi. Not sure how safe it was either (people told me is unwise to walk around large parts of the city) but personally i had no issues walking to and from the station. Plus once you get to the train station the services only run once every hour or two. Absolutely shocking that one of the busiest airports in Africa has zero public transport.
Its easy to go tram + trolleybus ( a trolleybus is, by definition, electric). We always stay at the Hotel Roma near Malostranska. Our journey to the airport was on a comfortable aircon low floor tram on route 20, with a same platform change onto the trolleybus at Divocka Sarka. And just to note that the trolleybuses are (a) three section (Boris J would have a fit...he couldn't abide even two section artic buses...) and (b) hybrid - trolley poles plus battery electric. The wires don't extend all the way to the airport
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No one has mentioned Euroairport Basel / Mulhouse / Freiburg. It is the only one of Switzerland's three main airports to not have a rail link (yet), but the very efficient Bus 50.
Of course the very mention of this airport extends the debate further - ie:
Is it how busy the airport is or how it fits in to a country logistically that matters? Basel illustrates the conundrum well. It handles fewer flights/passengers than Zurich or Geneve, so therefore a rail link has not - so far - been a priority, but it is nevertheless, proportionally, an important airport in a small country like Switzerland. However the airport is becoming ever more popular (partly due to the explosion in Rhine river cruising), and so the 50 now has articulated buses instead of single buses - the last few times I rode on it with non artics some passengers couldn't get on.
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Basel is a French airport. It might serve the Swiss city of Basel but it is in French territory. So officially it is a French airport rather than a Swiss one.
It has a railway station within walking distance. Saint Louis La Chaussee is only a short fifteen to twenty minute walk away. So not directly connected but still convenient if you do not mind a bit of walking.
They could probably built a closer dedicated airport station on the existing railway line halfway between Saint Louis and Saint Louis La Chaussee stations. Then that could be connected to the terminal via a footpath or subway or bridge or something. That would be a simple way to give it a proper airport station.
daodao
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Edinburgh has a light rail [tram] service.
Falcon1200
Established Member
The bus between Paisley and Glasgow Airport, McGills 757, only takes about 15 minutes, however it does trundle round various Paisley suburbs en route to the Airport, rather than going direct.
There was a planned rail link to Glasgow Airport, and the rail improvement works were done, but the Airport branch was cancelled.
Not quite rail linked but Ferihegy railway station is located not far and I used the station when the old terminal was in use which is directly opposite the railway station.
JFK is debatable, given you have to get both the subway *and* their air train to get there. It’s really poor. Same problem with Newark though I find it preferable to JFK.
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