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Grantley Adams International Airport | |||||||||||
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Summary | |||||||||||
Airport type | Public | ||||||||||
Owner | Government of Barbados | ||||||||||
Operator | GAIA Inc.[3] | ||||||||||
Serves | Barbados | ||||||||||
Location | Seawell, Christ Church | ||||||||||
Hub for | InterCaribbean Airways | ||||||||||
Elevation AMSL | 170 ft / 52 m | ||||||||||
Coordinates | 13°04′29″N 059°29′33″W / 13.07472°N 59.49250°W | ||||||||||
Website | gaia.bb | ||||||||||
Maps | |||||||||||
![]() Barbados airport diagram | |||||||||||
Runways | |||||||||||
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Statistics (2019) | |||||||||||
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Grantley Adams International Airport (GAIA) (IATA: BGI, ICAO: TBPB) is an international airport at Seawell, Christ Church, Barbados, serving as the country's only port of entry by air.
The airport is the only designated port of entry for persons arriving and departing by air in Barbados and operates as one of the major gateways to the Eastern Caribbean. It has direct service to destinations in the United States, Canada, Central America and Europe. In 2016, the airport was the eighth-busiest airport in the Caribbean region and the third-busiest airport in the Lesser Antilles after Queen Beatrix International Airport on Aruba and Pointe-à-Pitre International Airport on Guadeloupe. GAIA also remains an important air-link for cruise ship passengers departing and arriving at the Port of Bridgetown,[6] and a base of operations for the Regional Security System (RSS), and the Regional (Caribbean) Police Training Centre.
The airport's former name was Seawell Airport before being dedicated posthumously in honour of the first Premier of Barbados, Sir Grantley Herbert Adams in 1976. The airport is in the Atlantic time zone (UTC−4:00)[7] and is in World Area Code region No. 246 (by the US Department of Transportation). It was a hub for now-defunct Barbadian carriers Caribbean Airways[8] (not to be confused with the currently-as of 2024-operating Caribbean Airlines) and REDjet, the home for the charter carrier West Indies Executive Air, and former home to the flight training school Coconut Airways.
"Our thrust is to take the number of cruise passengers from 700,000 to 1.2 million per year. A significant percentage of these will be part of the Air/Sea and Stay/Cruise programs. Existing facilities at GAIA are already stressed to handle passenger volumes during the 12 to 4 pm period. The new focus of developing the air/sea program will necessitate a suitable review of the airport plant and no doubt this will be addressed in by the master plan," he said.