Ben Gurion International Airport
If you're going to be traveling to Israel specifically, chances are you're probably going to be passing through Ben Gurion International Airport on your way into and out of the country.
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The Ben Gurion International Airport
If you're going to be traveling to Israel specifically, chances are you're probably going to be passing through Ben Gurion International Airport on your way into and out of the country. Ben Gurion International Airport is the largest and most heavily used airport in all of Israel, and handles over nine million foreign and domestic passengers every year, of which more than 8.5 million are international. It's three runways service almost seventy thousand aircraft a year and almost nine thousand domestic.
Ben Gurion International Airport is the hub of most major Israeli airlines, including El Al Israel Airlines, Israir Airlines, and Sun D'Or. It's also a major hub of transportation for many of the world's largest and most successful airline companies, landing aircraft every day from global corporations like British Airways, Delta Airlines, Air France, Lufthansa, and Korean Air. Because of Israel's powerful tourist industry and the relatively small size of the country - and thus the brevity of road trips from the airport to other locations in the country - Ben Gurion International Airport services a massive number of tourists every year, bringing people in from all over the world to see the only country to have ever returned to it's original location after nearly two thousand years of exile across the rest of the world. It's a miracle that Israel exists at all, and Ben Gurion International Airport is a good example of Israeli efficiency and professionalism.
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Location of the Ben Gurion International Airport
Ben Gurion International Airport is located near the relatively small Israeli city of Lod - in fact, Ben Gurion International Airport was known as the Lod Airport from 1948 until 1973. In 1973, the Ben Gurion International Airport received its name from its namesake, Israel's first prime minister, David Ben Gurion. For more information on the history of the Ben Gurion International Airport, see the section `History of the Ben Gurion International Airport' later in this article.
While Lod isn't a particularly large or influential city in the nation of Israel, the city of Tel Aviv certainly is. Tel Aviv is about fifteen kilometers north of Lod and the Ben Gurion International Airport, and is the second most populous city in the entire nation of Israel. As such, it is a major destination both for tourists as well as government officials, aides, foreign workers, and businessmen and women from all around the world. Ben Gurion International Airport is located on Highway 1, which runs between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
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Transportation from the Ben Gurion International Airport
For the passenger landing at Ben Gurion International Airport, there are plenty of ways to leave the airport and begin the process of seeing the rest of the country. Several major bus lines - including the Egged and Dan bus companies - ferry passengers along Highway 1 between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, with stops by the Ben Gurion International Airport to pick up arrivals or drop off departures. Highway 1 is also, of course, open to private vehicles, and some passengers may prefer to use one of the airport's many car rental services to go around and see the country while in Israel.
Busses and rental cars aren't the only way to get around, of course. A passenger heading toward the exterior of the Ben Gurion International Airport will see taxi stands outside where passengers can go after deplaning in order to find rides into Lod or Tel Aviv. These stands, if you are interested in going to Ben Gurion International Airport and renting a taxi, are located outside of the Arrivals building. Another form of transportation unique to Israel and the Ben Gurion International Airport is the sherut, or taxi van, which carries passengers from Ben Gurion International Airport to Beer Sheva, Haifa, and Jerusalem.
There is also a public rail system leading to the airport which passengers may take if they'd rather not deal with the crowded conditions of a bus, the cost of a rental car or taxi, or, of course, the footsore problems of the hitchhiker. A train ride is, in fact, a great way to see the terrain surrounding the Ben Gurion International Airport and the cities in the general area. The rail company with access to the Ben Gurion International Airport is Israeli Airways, with a Ben Gurion International Airport Railway Station located in the lower level of terminal 3, from which passengers can travel to Tel Aviv or locations further north. The trip to Tel Aviv only takes about fifteen minutes and costs less than three American dollars. If one so chooses, one can take branching routes from the main rail loine and end up in other destinations on the rail network, including Beer Sheva, Jerusalem, and Ashdod.
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Runways at the Ben Gurion International Airport
There are three main runways at the Ben Gurion International Airport, all linked, monitored and managed by state of the art airport technology and software, run by trained professionals with the sort of efficiency and practicality one has come to expect from many Israeli operations. The main runway, the closest to Ben Gurion International Airport's terminals 1 and 3, and is generally used for landings. Approaches fly in over the Mediterranean Sea and the southern districts of Tel Aviv to land on the 3100 meter runway. Sometimes, if weather is causing trouble for takeoffs on either of the other two runways, the main runway may be used for takeoffs as well as landings.
The `Short Runway' at the Ben Gurion International Airport is still almost 1800 meters long and thus capable of landing most classes of modern aircraft. In the past, the short runway's main purpose was as a landing strip for the Israeli Air Force's cargo aircraft. Today, it's usually used as a lane for planes to get ready for the quiet runway, though it is still occasionally used in north to south landings.
The largest runway at 3600 meters is the so-called `Quiet Runway,' which is the main take-off runway from east to west. The quiet runway is also the newest runway, built in the early 70s and renovated in 2006 to reinforce the runway to handle the biggest and heaviest of modern aircraft, including the massive Airbus A380. The reason this runway is called the quiet runway is because it is situated so that the noise pollution from jets taking off on it reaches local residents much less than takeoff noise from the other two runways.
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Security at the Ben Gurion International Airport
If there's one thing Ben Gurion International Airport is famous for, it's the airport's security. The Ben Gurion International Airport is the most secure airport on Earth - mostly due to the fact that Israel is the most heavily targeted nation on Earth by terrorists. Security at the Ben Gurion International Airport is a matter of life and death, and its security teams take their jobs so seriously that a passenger at Ben Gurion International Airport is safer than any other airport in the world. Security at Ben Gurion International Airport operates on several different levels in order to catch the widest range of possible criminals. Security personnel are heavily armed to deal with potential terrorists or hijackers, and are trained to use lethal force if necessary.
There are several methods employed by security and police at Ben Gurion International Airport in order to ensure that any would-be terrorist event there will not succeed. Guards are trained to watch for anything suspicious, and to strike up conversations with anyone who looks nervous in order to root out anyone with hostile intentions. Bags and luggage are put through pressure chambers in order to set off any explosives that may be concealed inside. Surveillance cameras operate at all times, and the airport employs a large number of undercover operatives in all security procedures.
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Terminals at the Ben Gurion International Airport
There are four main terminals at the Ben Gurion International Airport which serve thousands of planes every year from around the world - including passenger planes, cargo planes, and a large number of military planes, especially those from the Israeli national Air Force, which is one of the best airborne military units in the world: rivaling even the United States in terms of technology and trumping them in terms of pilot skill, expertise, and experience. It only takes one look at the Israeli air campaign in the six day war to see just how superior Israeli pilots can be when pressed for it.
Terminal 3 is now the main international gateway into the nation of Israel, though Terminal 1 - the old holder of that title - still services some international flights. Terminal 3 is spacious and clean, with towering ceilings supported by massive pillars that communicate the open feel and design aesthetic of the country. Security presence is constant and vigilante - it's good to note that, while many terrorist incidents have been attempted at Ben Gurion International Airport, not a single hijacking has ever succeeded there.
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History of the Ben Gurion International Airport
Ben Gurion International Airport originally started in 1936 as the Lydda airport, a mid-sized airstrip with four concrete runways just outside the Arabic city of Lydda, and was built by the British Mandate of Palestine for primarily military reasons. The British and other allied forces used the Lydda airport in World War II to ship supplies in from Europe, the Far East, and other countries nearby.
Lydda began receiving passengers in 1946, and the brand new state of Israel took control over it in 1948. If you plan on traveling to Israel and passing through Ben Gurion International Airport, keep that in mind - it's not every day that you get to see an airport that is older than the country that owns it.
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First Flights at the Ben Gurion International Airport
The very first civilian transatlantic air route opened to the Ben Gurion International Airport was from America - Tel Aviv to New York, inaugurated by TWA in 1946. As Israel grew, so did air traffic into the country, until the airport was handling one hundred thousand passengers every month in 1952. By the mid sixties, there were fourteen major international airlines landing at Lod Airport.
Immigration from around the world, especially Ethiopia and the then Soviet Union in the eighties, strained the capacity of the airport and it was expanded as a result to handle the heavy influx of immigrants. The project started then wasn't officially completed until Terminal 3 opened its doors in late 2004.
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Ben Gurion International Airport's Namesake
Ben Gurion International Airport received its name in 1973, when it was officially named after the first Prime Minister of Israel, David Ben Gurion. The airport was named after him the same year he died. Ben Gurion had a great passion for Zionism that was a fundamental part of his character and helped lead to his role in the founding of the state of Israel in 1948.
David Ben Gurion helped lead his people to victory in the Arab-Israeli war of 1948, and was instrumental in the return of vast numbers of Jews from around the world. After his death, Ben Gurion was named one of Time Magazine's 100 most important people of the century. His name will be immortalized forever by one of the most important structures in Israel: the Ben Gurion International Airport.
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