History

Prague Airport officially launched its operations in 1937. Its development as well as that of its runway system reflected both Czechoslovakian and European general aviation development trends and tendencies. In compliance with the contemporary needs, there were five grass take-off and landing strips positioned at 45° from one another, forming a star shape, each in the length of 900 – 1050 metres. Take-offs were performed in any direction, always against the direction of the wind. 

The first paved runways were built during the 1940s as the grass-surfaced ones became unfit for the needs of the quickly developing air transport segment. Construction of the first paved runway started as early as towards the end of 1937. About half of the runway system was finished by the time of the Nazi invasion in March 1939. All four planned paved runways were finished by 1945 in the originally designed directions in the following lengths:

• RWY 04/22 -> 1800m
• RWY 13/31 -> 1020m
• RWY 08/26 -> 1320m
• RWY 17/35 -> 950m

The main runways – RWY 04/22 and RWY 13/31 – were continually lengthened during post WW II operations which kept them in line with the demands of the aviation industry until the mid 1960s when a new air transport onset took place. As a logical outcome, a concept of increasing the runway system capacity by building a new runway – RWY 07/25 (later relabelled to RWY 06/24 due to the gradual change in the location of magnetic north) - was put forward in the 1950s. The construction was finished during the 1960s when this new runway with the length of 3,115 metres became the main airport runway; the original main runway RWY 13/31 eventually lost its importance.

Current Situation  

Two runways are currently used at Prague Airport: the main runway RWY 06/24 (lengthened in 1982 to 3,715 metres) and a side runway RWY 13/31.

Despite the ever changing aviation demands and rapid growth in number of passengers, the runway system at Prague - Ruzyne airport remained virtually the same throughout the decades following the construction of RWY 06/24.

The insufficient airport capacity and that of the runway system especially was fully proved throughout the 1990s when the most turbulent growth of operations in the entire airport history took place. The airport had to change its status into that of fully coordinated airports, i.e. airports that are not freely available to air carriers, but where it is required of them to apply for a slot (the precise time of arrival and departure) for each of their flights.

At the beginning of the 21^st century, the situation with the insufficient capacity of the runway system escalated. As it became apparent that the construction of a parallel runway will be a project spanning more than just a few years, Czech Airports Administration (currently Prague Airport) in cooperation with Air Traffic Control, Civil Aviation Authority and pilots of CSA, Travel Service and Fisher Air decided to solve the situation by establishing a joint team called the “Runway Capacity Team”. The team was assigned the task to propose necessary adjustments to the runway system and procedures to enable a more intense use of the existing infrastructure in order to solve the capacity insufficiency for the time being until the parallel runway is constructed.

The current runway capacity insufficiency can thus only be solved by the construction of the parallel runway. The plan to build a parallel runway in due course was already in place when the current main runway RWY 06/24 was built in the 1960s. At the beginning of the 1970s, the plan was made part of the land use planning documentation of Prague. The parallel runway will allow for further increase in capacity of the runway system as one runway will then be assigned for arrivals and the other for departures only. This will enable more efficient traffic in the neighbouring air space. All currently existing aircraft with a wingspan of up to 80 metres will be able to use the new runway (the current runways comply with international regulations for aircraft with a maximum wingspan of 65 metres).