Hawarden (pronounced /ˈhɑrdən/ "Harden"; Welsh: Penarlâg) is a village in Flintshire, North Wales. Hawarden forms part of the Deeside conurbation on the Welsh/English border. At the 2001 Census, the population of Hawarden Ward was 1,858 (892 males, 966 females). The total population for the greater community of Hawarden, which includes Ewloe, was 13,539.
Hawarden Airport is one of 2 public airfields in North Wales although services are intermittent, the second being at Caernarfon. Its primary function is to serve the Raytheon and BAE Systems aerospace factories in the adjacent village of Broughton, where Airbus manufacture the wings of the Airbus airliners before they are flown in a Beluga cargo aircraft to Bremen, Germany for equipping (A330/340 & A300 Wings) or Hamburg, Germany and Toulouse, France (A320 family wings) for final assembly of the complete aircraft. The wings of the Airbus A380 are too large to be flown out and are instead transported by barge down the River Dee, to the port of Mostyn.
Hawarden Airport (IATA: CEG, ICAO: EGNR), is a small airport in Hawarden in north east Wales. It is situated 3.5 NM (6.5 km; 4.0 mi) west southwest of the city of Chester, which lies across the border in England. The airport is owned and operated by BAE Systems. A long term tenancy agreement has been signed with Airbus UK, giving rights as the sole operator of the site. At the airport there is a large Airbus factory which produces aircraft wings and also a Raytheon aircraft factory.
The aircraft factory located on the airfield is known as the Broughton factory, named after the nearest village.
Hawarden Aerodrome has a CAA Ordinary Licence (Number P786) that allows flights for the public transport of passengers or for flying instruction as authorised by the licensee (Airbus UK Limited).
Although there have been scheduled services to Hawarden in past years, there are currently no public scheduled passenger flights to the airport; most flights are chartered, or corporate, but the airport has frequent air freight flights provided by the Airbus Beluga to transport aircraft wings to Toulouse, Hamburg Finkenwerder and Bremen for Airbus. The Beluga also occasionally visits Airbus' second UK site at Filton, Bristol. There are also regular bmi Regional Embraer EMB-145 shuttle flights to Bristol Filton and Toulouse for Airbus workers. A number of privately owned light aircraft are based at Hawarden. Police aircraft also operate from here. North Wales Military Air Services are also based here offering maintenance for classic military aircraft, such as the Jet Provost, Strikemaster and L-39, with three Strikemasters, one Jet Provost and an Aero L-39 operating from Hawarden for airshows and pilot training.
