Kaliningrad Airport is the westernmost air gate of the Russian Federation. It receives many flights from other cities of our country. After all, traveling by air to this enclave means avoiding a lot of hassle with a foreign passport, visa and border crossing. In principle, the airport already has the status of an international one; planes from the CIS countries land at it. But soon a hub for passengers traveling to the countries of Western Europe should be built here. Kaliningrad Airport has a very interesting history. We will tell her, as well as other significant and useful facts about this air terminal in this article.
Unique Devau Airport
When Kaliningrad was still called Königsberg and belonged to Germany, it also had its own civilian terminal. It is noteworthy that earlier, during the First World War,there were many military air bases, but for ordinary passengers the path to the sky was quite thorny. Germany is one of the countries that decided to allow civilians to travel by air. And the state built its first airport called Devau not somewhere in Berlin, but in Königsberg. It happened way back in 1919. In 1921, the world's first stationary aviation meteorological service was opened here to serve aircraft. But that's not all interesting facts about Devau. The country of the Soviets, which had been in international isolation for a long time, sent its first civilian flight here. In 1922, a plane landed in Devau, making a successful flight Moscow - Riga - Königsberg. After the city was liberated from the fascist invaders and the enclave was transferred to the Soviet Union according to the Potsdam Treaty, they began to build a new Kaliningrad airport. But Devau did not become abandoned. Now there is an aviation museum and the base of the local DOSAAF flying club.
Location
It was decided to build a new civil airport in the north-east of the city, since most flights were supposed to be taken from Moscow. The choice fell on the village of Khrabrovo, which is located at a distance of about twenty kilometers from the city center. All property from Devau that could be moved was transported to a new location. Until 1961, the Kaliningrad airport was still operated as a military base of the joint aviation squadron. In 1977, the landing strip began to receive civilianaircraft TU-134. And only in 1979 a terminal for passengers was built. In 1988, the runway was reconstructed so that it was able to receive heavy liners of the TU-154 type. Covering with asph alt concrete turned out to be very useful, because the era of Boeings has come. Now the most western gates of Russia are also capable of accepting heavy liners weighing more than a hundred tons. Such giants, for example, as the Boeing 737.
Infrastructure
The current airport building began construction in 2004 and was completed in 2007. Thus, the civil terminal meets all modern requirements for passenger service. The building is two-story, but getting lost in it is simply unrealistic. Firstly, room diagrams hang everywhere. Information desk of Kaliningrad airport will inform you about arrivals and departures. Waiting for your flight will not be boring. For those who travel outside the country, there is a duty-free shop. The building has a dedicated smoking area, which is amazing for airports. Overseas guests can pass the time in a special waiting room.
Aviation control
Kaliningrad region is an enclave. Therefore, all passengers arriving here go through passport control when disembarking. But it is enough for citizens of the Russian Federation to present an internal document. If you are going to go further west, that is, you arrived in transit, you need a passport. For the safety of passengers and the aircraft, when boarding a flight, you need to go through security control. Registration is subject tofrom the airline. Since the city is separated from the hub by twenty kilometers, it is worth arriving at the Kaliningrad airport in advance. How to get to your check-in counter - you will find out on the board in front of the entrance.
From where planes are taken from
Khrabrovo is connected by numerous flights with other Russian airports. From the capital, they fly here from Vnukovo, Sheremetyevo and Domodedovo. Kaliningrad is also connected to St. Petersburg, Murmansk, Cherepovets, Krasnodar, Kazan and Belgorod. From neighboring countries, planes fly from here to Kyiv, Tashkent, Minsk, Bishkek and Riga. So far, irregular charter flights to Copenhagen (Scandinavien Airlines) and Berlin depart for Western Europe from Khrabrov. But in the future it is planned to open new directions. Now Khrabrovo has a capacity of three million passengers a year. But in order to become a full-fledged international terminal, it needs to improve infrastructure, in particular, transport links. So far, only the Kaliningrad-Airport bus No. 144 and minibuses are running. The fare is about 50 rubles.
Message Kaliningrad - airport
You can, of course, get to the city by taxi. This is the fastest way, but it costs from 250 rubles during the day and 400 rubles at night. Buses run every forty minutes. It is easy to get to the city center by a rented car along the Primorskoye Koltso motorway (travel time is about fifteen minutes). In futureit is planned to launch an express train from the Kaliningrad railway station to the airport, especially since the Zelenogorsk-Svetlogorsk-Kaliningrad railway line has already been laid to Khrabrov. There are plans to build a hotel complex at the airport.
