Seven and a half miles south-east of Liverpool city centre, on the estuary of the River Mersey, lies one of the UK’s most historically layered airports. Liverpool John Lennon Airport – still widely known by its original name, Speke Airport – carries the IATA code LPL and the ICAO code EGGP, and handled 4.19 million passengers in 2023, ranking it the 12th-busiest airport in the United Kingdom. Scheduled flights connect the city to domestic destinations, European cities, North Africa and the Middle East, all operating through a single passenger terminal alongside three general-use hangars, a FedEx Express courier centre and a single runway measuring 7,500 feet in length. The control tower stands to the south of that runway.
From Imperial Airways to the Present Day
The airport began life as Liverpool (Speke) Airport, built partly within the grounds of Speke Hall. Scheduled services started in 1930 with an Imperial Airways route running via Barton Aerodrome near Eccles and Castle Bromwich Aerodrome in Birmingham to Croydon Airport near London. The airport was officially opened on 1 July 1933. By the late 1930s, rising demand for Irish Sea crossings prompted the construction of a new passenger terminal, control tower and two large aircraft hangars. In 2001 the airport was renamed in honour of John Lennon, the Liverpool-born musician and member of The Beatles. Passenger numbers grew sharply in the years that followed, rising from 689,468 in 1997 to 5.47 million in 2007.
Wartime at Speke
At the start of 1937, Liverpool City Council leased between 70 and 110 acres of its Speke Estate to the Air Ministry on a 999-year lease, with work on a shadow factory beginning on 15 February 1937. Managed by Rootes Securities, the factory was planned to employ more than 5,000 people once complete. During the Second World War, the Royal Air Force requisitioned the aerodrome and operated it as RAF Speke. Rootes produced Bristol Blenheims and 1,070 Handley Page Halifax bombers at the adjacent shadow factory, while the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation assembled Hudsons and Mustang fighters from parts shipped in from the United States through Liverpool Docks. The airport also housed the Merchant Ship Fighter Unit. On 8 October 1940, Flight Lieutenant Denys Gillam took off from Speke in a Hawker Hurricane and shot down a Junkers Ju 88 while his undercarriage was still retracting – an engagement considered the fastest air-to-air combat kill in the Battle of Britain, and possibly of all time. He was credited alongside 312 Squadron pilots Alois Vašátko and Josef Stehlík.