Birmingham airport code: BHX

Two codes name the same airport. BHX is the IATA code and EGBB the ICAO code, both read from OurAirports' public-domain list, which is what the airport code lookup searches. The same row gives the position, 52.4539° N, 1.7480° W, and an elevation of 327 ft (100 m). The place name is Birmingham, West Midlands, and Birmingham International Airport is listed among its keywords.

BHX is not BHM

The same list has a Birmingham in Alabama, in the United States: Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport, IATA code BHM, ICAO code KBHM. It's roughly 6,800 km from Birmingham Airport in a straight line. Apart from closed airfields and heliports, OurAirports has no other airport in England with Birmingham in its name or place name, so a search for the Birmingham code that returns BHM is the American one.

One runway, and how it came to be this long

OurAirports lists a single runway at Birmingham, lit and 148 ft (45 m) wide.

The two numbers are compass headings in tens of degrees: in the file, 15 points about 148 degrees true and 33 about 328. Its two ends sit at 305 ft and 328 ft above sea level, and the file records displaced thresholds of 958 ft (292 m) at the 15 end and 1,474 ft (449 m) at the 33 end. What a runway is has the rest.

The airport's history page describes the runway before it looked like this. The Air Ministry built two hard-surface runways during the Second World War, of 2,469 ft and 4,170 ft, to replace the original grass strip. The airport later applied to lengthen the runway by 400 metres. Work began in July 2012 and, according to the same page, the longer runway was brought into use in May 2014, which the page says means the airport can now deliver long-haul flights.

Elmdon, and a terminal across the runway

The same history page says the airport, known as Elmdon Airport, was opened on a site at Elmdon that lies eight miles south-east of the city. When more capacity was needed, construction began in 1981 on a new terminal "on the other side of the runway", and it opened in 1984.

Watching from the ground

Birmingham publishes a free official aircraft viewing area in Car Park 5, before security and open 24 hours daily, next to the airfield perimeter fence. It has seating and picnic benches, and normal turn-up parking prices apply if you drive in. For aircraft using Runway 15 the airport names Sheldon Country Park as an alternative. It doesn't allow live streaming without prior permission, and the airport's byelaws, in force since 17 October 2021, say a person on the site who doesn't follow them could face a fine or be removed. The plane spotting guide for the UK has the hours, the walk to Sheldon and the other places the operators publish.

The four airports nearest to Birmingham

Straight-line distances, worked out from the coordinates of the 112 airports in the lookup:

BHX on a print

The airport code print is set from the lookup's row. Open it with BHX filled in and the type comes with BHX, then BIRMINGHAM · UNITED KINGDOM, then 52.4539° N, 1.7480° W. Every line can be edited before you order.

Other codes with their own pages: Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and Edinburgh. For someone who watches rather than flies, gifts for plane spotters has the rest of the range, and aviation gifts covers every recipient.