They say the Internet allows people with unusual interests to get together, so I'm hoping this is the right place !

I live in London and am fortunate that it's one of the best connected cities for aviation in Europe.
Over the last 10 years, I've been trying to visit every airport in Europe (yes, Europe, not just the UK) - collecting them a bit like other people collect stamps. To add to a collection, my personal rule is
a) one has to have flown *out* of the airport AND
b) travelled between the main city it serves AND
c) where a flight exists connecting the airport to my home city then I should have taken such a flight

As an example I can add Zurich airport only if I have travelled form Zurich city centre to Zurich airport, flown out of Zurich airport, and flown between London and Zurich.
A smaller city like Lugano (also in Switzerland) requires only that I have fulfilled conditions a) and b). Of course if ever non-stop flights are introduced between London and Lugano I suddenly find that the airport is no longer on my 'collected' list and I need to buy myself a ticket between London and Lugano. As an example, there are normally never flights between London and St Etienne in France - until the UEFA European football cup in June 2016 when Ryanair put 2 special scheduled flights on sale for Brits wanting to watch the football - so I had to catch one of those flights.

The fact that LCCs like Easyjet, Ryanair, Wizzair and Norwegian have a large presence in London helps tremendously with costs. Yes, I know it's a rather expensive and time consuming hobby but I don't have kids and it's a fun way to see my home continent. To keep things manageable, I exclude Russia from the list as visas are too troublesome, but I include airports in Morocco, Turkey and Israel as they are so well connected to Europe

I found one guy on Pprune who seems to do this for UK airports but I've never found anyone else who seems to be into this in a serious or semi-serious way.

Am I the only one who thinks this is fun, or is there anyone else out there who is into this ?

Am I the only one who thinks this is fun, or is there anyone else out there who is into this ?

I also think it is fun. I collect airports also, but my "rules" are different than yours.

I have two lists
- One list has airports I have flown in or out (taken off from, or landed at, or both). If I make a connection at an airport, I count that airport as flown to, even though I didn't leave the airport via ground transportation
- One list has airports that I have "visited" (meaning seeing the airport from the ground in some manner), If I fly into an airport that have not yet visited, I have to leave the airport and come back to count it as visited. (Sometimes I cheat on this one, if I fly in, stay around for awhile to spot, before leaving). I don't necessarily come from the city center to the airport to count it as visited; sometimes I am driving from one place to another and the airport is somewhere in between, so I go a little out of the way to visit the airport.

Since I am US based, I have most of the airports in the US on my second list (only a few of the out-of-the-way airports left to visit), and have most of the big airports and some smaller airports on my first list. I also have some airports on both lists from Europe, Canada, Caribbean, and New Zealand/Australia.

I also only count airports that have airline traffic with aircraft having 100 seats or more - there are a lot of GA airports here !

Virginia has an Aviation Ambassadors Program where you can get a passport. Every airport in VA (commercial and those that handle general aviation) have a stamp located somewhere. Some are in FBOs or in the airport terminals. You don't need to fly in/from to get a stamp.

There are 66 public use airports in VA. If you go to all of them, plus visit four museums, attend a safety seminar and a fly in you get a leather jacket! Not bad for free!

I used to date someone that was a GA pilot in VA and so knocked out about 40 of them easily through work. We were planning on renting a 172 to go knock out the ones in the more remote parts of the Commonwealth!

http://www.doav.virginia.gov/vaap.htm#P ... ion_levels

I certainly think it is fun, but I don't do anything similar myself. Basically there are three reasons for that.

Lack of free time is the first reason. I only have a couple of weeks off each year, the rest of the year I have to work so I can't travel.

Money is the second reason. I don't exactly make a fortune, so I have to watch my expenses. Even with LCCs it can still add up.

Inconvenient location is the third one. I live in the Netherlands, about 70 km from Amsterdam. Amsterdam doesn't have as many destinations as London, specially on LCCs which are basically my only option since legacies are far too expensive for me. I prefer to use Eindhoven or Weeze instead of Amsterdam. These airports may be further, but a lot cheaper. But do they count as my home airports?

In a few years Lelystad will open for commercial air traffic which is almost right at my doorstep. It's expected that Ryanair will start flights out of there. Maybe I should copy your idea to just Lelystad airport. They won't be having that many destinations initially so it would be doable.

I do something similar though perhaps dont quite so actively pursue all the airports I havent been to as does the OP - but if planning a trip I do like to take in either an airport, aircraft type or airline that I havent visited/used before. I have a map full of pins for airports visited rather than 'stamps' collected

Like the OP I am London based and tend to use LHR, LCY and LGW. My 'rules' are a bit different and are that for a flight to qualify if I start in London then I must have left the destination airport though not necessarily gone into the city served by that airport. So for example I have changed planes a few times in BKK but never left the airport - so they get logged as part of my travel history but dont get a pin on my travel map.

Similarly there are a few airports where I have left the airport but not actually gone to the city they serve - eg AGP and GVA so they do get a pin in my map as well as being on my travel log.

Interesting idea, but how do you do that when it is not quite clear what town an airport serves like NRN. The village of Weeze isn't much special. Ryanair calls this airport Dusseldorf Weeze. Do you go to the city of Dusseldorf just to log NRN?

BGY is another case. Milan Bergamo Orio al Serio airport, that's three town names. Orio al Serio is the village next to the airport. Bergamo is the bigger town directly served by the airport. But in general BGY serves Milan, further away. So where do you go when you go to BGY?

What about FMO? Munster-Osnabruck airport, do you go to Munster or to Osnabruck? Or both?

Last question, no doubt you have visited EIN which is my home airport. What did you think of it? Did you like the city?

Weeze - yes, I really did spend some time in Weeze town (met a nice couple running a shop selling Dutch cheese), and then took a train to visit Essen before returning back to NRN the same evening
Bergamo Orio al Serio - - I had spent the day going around Bergamo old and new towns many years ago and already visited Milan, so went to Lecco and took a boat trip around Lake Como visiting some of the villas and gardens instead
Munster/Osnabruck - went round both (the location of the peace treaty of 1648 was fascinating), but then they are both modest sized towns and well connected to each other by public transport so quite possible to see both
Eindhoven - interesting (if rather modern !) place. I liked the Van Abbe design museum, and the railway station in the shape of a radio. The Philips museum was unusual but a little bit too corporate for my tastes.

Europe has a lot of history so it's pretty rare that you can't find a way to fill a day in a town near an airport - the only exception seems to be airports which are in very remote areas like the far north of the Nordic countries or tiny offshore islands

I did say that that collecting airports in day trips can make for a fun way to see Europe... !

I have 240 European airports properly logged, with an additional 40 others where I haven't completely fulfilled my criteria. Unfortunately there's still another 300 airports with commercial airline service in Europe (or near Europe) still to go which makes it all seem a bit daunting. Yes, I am rather serious (bordering on obsessive !) about this ambition - anyone else do this ?

davidjohnson6 wrote:

I did say that that collecting airports in day trips can make for a fun way to see Europe... !

I have 240 European airports properly logged, with an additional 40 others where I haven't completely fulfilled my criteria. Unfortunately there's still another 300 airports with commercial airline service in Europe (or near Europe) still to go which makes it all seem a bit daunting. Yes, I am rather serious (bordering on obsessive !) about this ambition - anyone else do this ?

I can really imagine your trips being a lot of fun, maybe especially those that lead into smaller communities like the mentioned Weeze or Osnabrück.
Being a student on the corresponding budget plus my home airports being either Mannheim (which offers a total of four daily D328 flights to HAM and TXL) or FRA (which isn't particularly known for being an LCC stronghold) I really can't claim to be involved into actively compiling a collection like that yet .

It sure seems like a great idea for a future hobby though.
Do you have a list you'd want to share with us which of Europe's airports you have already logged and which not? Would be more than interesting to see imo.

lugie - if you're in Mannheim, there's always airports like Hahn, Karlsruhe and Stuttgart relatively nearby which have LCCs - don't have to pay the super high fares of Rhein-Neckar to go flying...
At the risk of showing off, I've listed the airports which I've either 1) fully completed, or 2) part completed. Reasons for being part complete are typically because I've flown in but not flown out, or a new terminal has been built which I have yet to pass through and see.

Albania PART COMPLETE - Tirana
Austria COMPLETE - Innsbruck, Salzburg, Vienna; PART COMPLETE - Klagenfurt
Belgium COMPLETE - Antwerp, Brussels-Zaventem, Charleroi, Liege
Bosnia COMPLETE - Mostar, Sarajevo
Croatia COMPLETE - Dubrovnik, Jelsa Seaport, Losinj, Lumbarda Seaport, Osijek, Pula, Pula Seaport, Resnik Seaport, Rijeka, Split, Split Seaport, Vela Luka Seaport, Zadar, Zagreb
Cyprus COMPLETE - Ercan, Larnaca, Paphos
Czechia COMPLETE - Prague
Denmark COMPLETE - Aarhus, Copenhagen; PART COMPLETE - Esbjerg
Estonia COMPLETE - Tallinn
Finland COMPLETE - Helsinki, Kittila, Rovaniemi, Tampere
France COMPLETE - Avignon, Beauvais, Beziers, Bordeaux, Brive, Caen, Chambery, Chateauroux, Clermont-Ferrand, Deauville, Epinal, La Rochelle, Le Puy, Lourdes, Montpellier, Nice, Paris-CDG, Paris-Orly, Perpignan, Poitiers, Pontoise, Quimper, Rennes, St Etienne, Toulon, Toulouse, Vatry; PART COMPLETE - Ajaccio, Angers, Calvi, Carcassonne, Grenoble, Lyon, Marseille, Nantes, Nimes, Rodez, Rouen
Germany COMPLETE - Augsburg, Berlin-Schoenefeld, Berlin-Tegel, Bremen, Bremerhaven, Cologne, Dortmund, Dresden, Dusseldorf, Erfurt, Frankfurt, Friedrichshafen, Hahn, Hamburg, Heligoland, Karlsruhe, Kassel, Leipzig, Lubeck, Memmingen, Munich, Munster-Osnabruck, Paderborn, Rostock, Weeze, Zweibrucken; PART COMPLETE - Hannover, Saarbrucken
Greece COMPLETE - Athens, Chania, Corfu, Heraklion, Karpathos, Volos; PART COMPLETE - Thessaloniki
Hungary COMPLETE - Budapest
Ireland COMPLETE - Dublin, Waterford; PART COMPLETE - Cork, Shannon
Israel COMPLETE - Eilat, Haifa, Ovda, Tel Aviv-Sde Dov; PART COMPLETE - Tel Aviv-Ben Gurion
Italy COMPLETE - Alghero, Bari, Bergamo, Bologna, Brescia, Crotone, Forli, Genoa, Lamezia, Milan-Linate, Naples, Olbia, Palermo, Parma, Pescsara, Pisa, Reggio Calabria, Rome-Ciampino, Rome-Fiumicino, Verona; PART COMPLETE - Ancona, Brindisi, Catania, Cuneo, Milan-Malpensa, Trapani, Treviso, Trieste, Turin, Venice-Marco Polo
Kosovo COMPLETE - Pristina
Latvia COMPLETE - Riga
Lithuania COMPLETE - Vilnius; PART COMPLETE - Kaunas
Luxembourg PART COMPLETE - Luxembourg
Macedonia COMPLETE - Ohrid
Malta COMPLETE - Valletta
Moldova PART COMPLETE - Chisinau
Montenegro COMPLETE - Podgorica
Morocco COMPLETE - Agadir, Marrakesh, Rabat, Tetouan; PART COMPLETE - Casablanca, Fez, Tangiers
Netherlands COMPLETE - Amsterdam, Eindhoven, Groningen, Maastricht, Rotterdam
Norway COMPLETE - Alesund, Fagernes, Hammerfest, Haugesund, Narvik, Notodden, Oslo-Gardemoen, Rygge, Torp; PART COMPLETE - Bergen, Bodo, Harstad-Evenes, Tromso
Poland PART COMPLETE - Krakow, Rzeszow, Warsaw
Portugal COMPLETE - Cascais, Faro, Lisbon, Portimao, Porto
Romania COMPLETE - Bucharest-Baneasa, Bucharest-Otopeni, Constanta, Iasi; PART COMPLETE - Bacau
Slovakia COMPLETE - Bratislava, Poprad; PART COMPLETE - Kosice
Slovenia COMPLETE - Ljubljana, Maribor
Spain COMPLETE - A Coruna, Alicante, Almeria, Asturias-Oviedo, Badajoz, Barcelona, Bilbao, Castellon, Girona, Gran Canaria, Ibiza, Jerez, La Gomera, Lanzarote, Leon, Lleida, Madrid, Malaga, Menorca, Murcia, Palma Mallorca, Reus, Salamanca, Seville, Tenerife-North, Tenerife-South, Valencia, Vigo, Vitoria-Gasteiz; PART COMPLETE - Santiago de Compostela, Valladolid
Sweden COMPLETE - Borlange, Gothenburg-City, Gothenburg-Landvetter, Halmstad, Kalmar, Karlstad, Kristianstad, Malmo, Norrkoping, Orebro, Ornskoldsvik, Ostersund, Skavsta, Skelleftea, Stockholm-Arlanda, Umea, Vasteras, Vaxjo; PART COMPLETE - Jonkoping
Switzerland COMPLETE - Bern, Geneva, Lugano, Sion, Zurich; PART COMPLETE - Basel
Turkey COMPLETE - Istanbul-Ataturk, Istanbul-Sabiha Gokcen
UK COMPLETE - Aberdeen, Alderney, Anglesey, Belfast-City, Belfast-Intl, Birmingham, Blackpool, Bournemouth, Cambridge, Campbeltown, Cardiff, Doncaster, Durham Tees Valley, East Midlands, Edinburgh, Exeter, Glasgow-Intl, Gloucester, Guernsey, Humberside, Inverness, Isle of Man, Jersey, Kirkwall, Leeds-Bradford, Liverpool, London-City, London-Gatwick, London-Heathrow, London-Luton, London-Southend, London-Stansted, Manchester, Newcastle, Newquay, Norwich, Oxford, Prestwick, RAF Mona, Shoreham, Southampton; PART COMPLETE - Bristol, Derry, Dundee, Gibraltar
Ukraine PART COMPLETE - Lviv, Odessa

My rules are simple:

1. Was I airside and did I get off the plane?
2. Did I have an explore?

Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, New Plymouth, Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Cairns, Narita, Heathrow, Glasgow, LAX, DFW, Atlanta, Memphis, Phoenix, Salt Lake City.

Others: RNZAF Whenuapai (airshows count!), Ardmore Airfield, Drury Gliding Club.

Nashville and Chicago Midway are the only two airports where I've only been landside and don't meet my qualifiers.

davidjohnson6 wrote:

lugie - if you're in Mannheim, there's always airports like Hahn, Karlsruhe and Stuttgart relatively nearby which have LCCs - don't have to pay the super high fares of Rhein-Neckar to go flying...
At the risk of showing off, I've listed the airports which I've either 1) fully completed, or 2) part completed. Reasons for being part complete are typically because I've flown in but not flown out, or a new terminal has been built which I have yet to pass through and see.

Thank you for that list, looks really impressive!
oh and I know about STR, FKB and HHN (I've used especially STR a few times already) but I was just referring to your third condition where you'd define a "homebase" airport and that would be in my case Mannheim or if I gave in a bit FRA. The others are a bit further away.

I like indeed visiting new airports when travelling. It always add some excitement. Flying a route multiple times becomes a bit like taking the metro, so it takes the pleasure out of travelling. For me it is very simple: I have logged an airport if a) I have flown into b) I have departed from or c) I have transited (leaving the aircraft).

I have a few biases in my "collection" of airports:

- I like "completing" metro areas or regions. For some reason I like first visiting all the airports in a metro area (eg: London). I like seeing my Flightdiary map with many "dots" in one small area.

- I like visiting airports (specially small airports) with some leisure interest and try to avoid airports in places I am not interested at all from a personal/touristic point of view. For instance, I haven't visited any airport in England other than the London airports, and I am not looking forward to it.

So I am not crazy about "collecting" airports but it is always interesting.

I have done this too but my rules are far more relaxed. I only have to arrive/leave on an aircraft, nothing more.

UK- INV, EDI, GLA, PIK, LBA, MAN, BLK, EMA, STN, LTN, LHR, LGW, LCY, BRS, CWL, NQY, IOM, SOU, BHX, DSA, BFS, BHD, LDY
FR- CDG, BZR, MPL, MRS, LYS, GNB, TLS
ES- MAD, BCN, REU, GRO, XRY, LPA, TFS, TFN, FUE, BIO, SDR, AGP
DE- FRA, HHN, BRE, FKB, STR, FMM, LBC, CGN, DUS, NRN, MUC, SXF, ZQW
IT- BGY, LIN, MXP, VRN, VBS, TRN, TRS, TSF, FRL, BRI, PMO, NAP, CIA, FCO, CAG, PSA
PL- WAW, BZG, POZ, GDN, KRK, KTW, LCJ
SE- NYO, ARN, VST, GSE
NO- OSL, RYG, TRF
FI- HEL
DK- CPH, AAR
SK- BTS
AT- SZG, VIE, INN
RO- CLJ, BBU, OTP
BG- BOJ
PO- LIS
NL- AMS, EIN
EI- DUB, ORK, SNN, CFN
MR- TNG
HR- ZAD
TR- IST, DLM
TH- HKT
CH- ZRH
SN- SIN
GH- ACC
ET- ADD
LT- RIX
LU- LUX

I do something slightly similar for Australia. I try and go firstly to a new place, but then also a new route between two places I've been to perhaps before. So I might have been to Adelaide for example from Perth, and flown out to Melbourne, but I've not flown to/from Adelaide from Sydney. Obviously you can be restricted by what flights are available. So slowly building up the lines on a route map.

The other thing I try and do and log as many European airports direct from my home airport of LHR
GLA, NCL, EDI, MME, DUB, AMS, RTM, ORY, CDG, TLS, MRS, NCE, BIO, MAD, BCN, LIS, LIN, FCO, ZRH, BSL, GVA, DUS, CGN, MUC, FRA, HAM, HAJ, TXL, STR, BRU, VIE, PRG, WAW, ATH, OSL, BGO, STO, GOT, CPH....LUX coming next week, and PSA later in the year. If I put my mind to it I could strike a load more off quite easier, but I like to see the places I'm going to too, and not just the airport.

rjwalker2514 wrote:

I have done this too but my rules are far more relaxed. I only have to arrive/leave on an aircraft, nothing more.

Same for me, for an airport to be considered in my collection I will have to either landed or taken-off from it. No matter if I was arriving, departing, transferring or transiting it.

AE: AUH, DXB
AR: AEP, EZE, FMA, RES
AT: INN, SZG, VIE
AU: ASP, DRW, MEL, SYD
AW: AUA
BE: ANR, BRU
BG: SOF, VAR
BH: BAH
BQ: BON
BR: CGH, CPQ, CWB, GRU, IGU, SDU
BY: MSQ
BZ: BZE, CZH, SPR, TZA
CA: YHY, YMX, YOW, YPI, YUL, YVR, YXY, YYC, YYZ, YZF, ZSW
CH: ACH, BRN, BXO, EML, GVA, LUG, SIR, ZRH, LSZP, LSZF, LSMD, LSZG, LSMI
CN: DLC, DNH, ENY, HGH, HRB, KHG, PEK, PVG, SHA, SHE, TAO, URC, XIY, YNT
CR: SJC
CU: GER, HAV, HOG, SCU, VRA
CW: CUR
CY: LCA
CZ: PRG
DE: BRE, BWE, CGN, DRS, DUS, FDH, FKB, FMM, FRA, GWT, HAJ, HAM, LBC, MUC, NUE, STR, SXF, THF, TXL, ZQW
DK: BLL, CPH
DO: PUJ
EE: TLL
EG: CAI, HRG
ES: ACE, AGP, ALC, BCN, GMZ, GRO, IBZ, LPA, MAD, MLN, PMI, TFN, TFS, VLC, VLL
FI: HEL, RVN
FM: KSA, MAJ, PNI, TKK
FR: AJA, BOD, BSL/MLH, CDG, CFE, DIJ, DLE, DNR, LTT, LYS, MRS, NCE, NTE, ORY, SXB, TLN
GB: ABZ, ACI, BHX, BLK, BRR, BRS, CVT, CWL, GCI, GLA, GLO, IOM, ISC, JER, LCY, LGW, LHR, LPL, LTN, MAN, PZE, SOU, STN
GI: GIB
GL: JAV, JHS, SFJ
GR: ATH, CFU, GPA, HER, HEW, JSI, JTR, KGS, RHO, SKG, SMI
GT: FRS, GUA
GU: GUM
HK: HKG
HR: BWK, SPU, ZAG
HU: BUD, SOB
IE: DUB, INQ, NNR, NOC, SNN
IL: TLV
IS: AEY, GRY, KEF, RKV
IT: BLQ, CAG, CTA, FCO, FLR, GOA, MXP, NAP, OLB, PMO, PSA, REG, TSF, VCE, VRN
JP: CTS, FUK, HAC, HKD, HND, ITM, IZO, KIX, NGO, NGS, NKM, NRT, OIM, OKD, TKS, TOY, WKJ
KP: DSO, FNJ, YJS
LT: VNO
LU: LUX
LV: RIX
MA: RAK
MC: MCM
MH: KWA, MAJ
MK: SKP
MP: ROP, SPN
MT: MLA
MV: MLE
MX: CUN
NA: WDH, WVB
NL: AMS, EIN, RTM
NO: BDU, BOO, FBU, OSL, RRS, SVJ, TRD, TRF
PL: WAW
PT: FNC, LIS, OPO
PY: AGT, ASU
RO: BBU, CLJ, OTP
RS: BEG
RU: ABA, ARH, DME, GOJ, IKT, KGD, KJA, KMW, KRR, LED, NJC, OMS, OVB, SVO, SWT, TOF, VGD, VKO, UNKM
SE: AJR, ARN, BLE, BMA, GOT, HFS, KSD, LPI, LYC, NRK, NYO, TYF, VBY
SG: SIN
SI: LJU
SK: BTS
SY: DAM
TH: BKK, DMK, HKT
TN: MIR
TR: ADA, AYT, ESB, IST, SAW
UA: IEV, KBP, ODS, OZH
UM: JON
US: ABQ, ATL, AVX, BDL, BOS, BUF, BWI, CVG, DCA, DEN, DFW, DTW, EWR, FLL, FUL, GED, HNL, IAD, ITO, JFK, KEH, KOA, LAS, LAX, LGA, LKE, MDW, MHV, MIA, MKK, OGG, ONT, ORD, PHL, PHX, PIT, SAN, SBY, SEA, SFO, SJO, SNA, SYR, TSS, VNY
UZ: TAS, UGC
VE: BLA, CAJ, CCS, PZO
XK: PRN
ZA: CPT, GRJ, JNB

As long as I've flown to/from the airport, AND entered (at least part of) the airport as a direct result, I count it. Thus, although flightmemory says I have 294 airports, it's actually 290 or 292.

Sticking with this subject, though I've been to JED (will change soon), BSB, ONT, and BUR, I've never visited those cities.