VIP terminals of Europe: from Le Bourget to Riga

The catalogue holds 51 objects in the region: business aviation terminals, FBOs and VIP lounges in 38 cities. Below are the ones that set the level of service in the region, and a short map of the rest.

Jet Aviation Basel

Basel, Switzerland · Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg (EuroAirport) (BSL) · standalone complex

Jet Aviation's ancestral site: the company was founded in Basel in 1967. The complex at EuroAirport combines an FBO terminal with VIP and crew lounges, customs on site and extensive hangars accepting aircraft up to the Boeing 747. Alongside it works the world-renowned centre for completion and VIP interior finishing of wide-body aircraft. The site is convenient for long-term parking and technical support during visits to Switzerland.

General Aviation Center (GAC)

Vienna, Austria · Vienna Schwechat (VIE) · standalone complex

Photo: Public domain

A business aviation centre west of the main terminals, operating round the clock since 2006. A three-storey building with customs and security screening, VIP lounges, shops and a restaurant seating 80; covered bays for cars are provided. Two hangars 13 m high for midsize aircraft adjoin the terminal, along with its own apron giving access to runway 11/29. Handling is provided by Vienna Aircraft Handling, from transporting passengers and crews to assistance with formalities on arrival.

Aéroport de Cannes-Mandelieu (Sky Valet Cannes)

Cannes, France · Cannes — Mandelieu (CEQ) · standalone complex

Photo: Public domain

France's second business aviation airport, 5 km from Cannes; it works entirely on general and business aviation. The terminal is given over wholly to private flights: VIP lounges, meet and greet, conference rooms, tax refund processing. Handling is by Sky Valet Cannes: filing flight plans, weather briefings, slots, hangar booking. The peak weeks are the Cannes Film Festival and the business exhibitions of the Côte d'Azur.

London Biggin Hill Airport

London, United Kingdom · London Biggin Hill (BQH) · standalone complex

Photo: HawkeyeUK, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons

The only London airport working solely on business aviation: its own FBO Biggin Hill Exec, hangars, maintenance services and The Landing hotel right on the site. An official border crossing point; slots are not required. A helicopter shuttle takes passengers to central London in about 6 minutes. Here too is the United Kingdom's largest Bombardier business jet service centre — 22 bays, holding up to 14 Global 7500s at a time.

Inflite The Jet Centre

London, United Kingdom · London Stansted (STN) · standalone complex

Photo: Thomas Nugent, CC BY-SA 2.0, Wikimedia Commons

A dedicated business aviation complex away from Stansted's passenger air terminals: a terminal, heated hangars and the engineering base of the family-run Inflite group, which has worked at the airport for more than three decades. The lounges are sized for groups from 2 to 200 passengers — from private departures to entire delegations and large VIP charters; the arrivals hall, with its own baggage belt and a Border Force post, clears arrivals right beside the stands. The complex's stands lie next to the runway, taxiing does not cross the flows of scheduled services, and central London is 35 miles away along the M11. Inflite's engineering wing is the largest Embraer service centre in Europe and Africa; business versions of the Boeing 737 and 757, and the BAe 146, are also supported here. Stansted is the traditional airport for state visits to London (Air Force One brought the US president here in September 2025), and such flights are received precisely in the business aviation zone, on isolated stands away from the common terminals.

Farnborough Airport

London (Farnborough), United Kingdom · Farnborough (FAB) · standalone complex

Photo: Gaius Cornelius, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

An airport built entirely for business aviation: terminal, hangars and control tower were designed as a single ensemble. The wave-form terminal opened in 2006 (architects Reid Architecture, engineers Buro Happold) and has won a number of architectural awards. About 30 000 aircraft movements a year, accepting aircraft up to the BBJ and ACJ. Customs and border control on site, and the Farnborough Airshow takes place alongside. By the summer of 2026 Flexjet is opening its own separate terminal here, the first in Europe.

Milano Linate Prime

Milan, Italy · Milan Linate (LIN) · standalone complex

Photo: cisko66, CC BY 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

A business aviation campus on the Linate site: two terminals with separate aprons, including a new passenger terminal of 2 000 m², ten lounges, three meeting rooms and two VIP car parks. Eleven hangars of about 30 000 m² in total accept aircraft up to the BBJ and ACJ; in 2024 Hangar X opened, 4 700 m² with underfloor heating and natural light. Italy's largest business aviation site; SEA Prime also manages the Malpensa Prime complex.

Milano Malpensa Prime

Milan, Italy · Milan Malpensa (MXP) · standalone complex

Photo: Saggittarius A, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

The Milan Malpensa business aviation terminal, opened by SEA Prime in July 2019 between passenger Terminals 1 and 2. The glass building of 1 400 m², designed by the One Works practice, holds five exclusive lounges, meeting rooms and a concierge service. An apron of 50 000 m² and a hangar of 5 000 m² for the newest business jets adjoin the terminal. Together with Linate Prime the site forms the Milano Prime system, Italy's leading business aviation hub.

Other objects in the region

The whole series

Fifty-one European objects put the region second in the series, behind North America with its ninety-eight. The summary article VIP terminals of business aviation worldwide draws all 308 terminals into one picture: where the line runs between a standalone complex and a standalone building, which operator networks hold several regions at once, and by which features the sites are compared.

How to use this

Whether a business aviation site exists at the destination is checked before the flight is booked, and this list shows where Europe leaves room to choose. London has five entrances for private flights: Biggin Hill, Farnborough, Stansted, Luton and City; in Paris all five catalogue entries fall on Le Bourget; in Milan business aviation is split between Linate and Malpensa. In Riga, Prague, Helsinki or Oslo there is a single object with no fallback in the same city, and arriving in a city without such a site means being met in the common passenger flow. Innsbruck is the only entry here where business aviation sits inside the main terminal, so the arrival procedure is worth checking with the operator in advance.

I have dealt with a European register directly — we brought the HondaJet into Russia by transferring it from the Maltese register to the Russian one. Direct flights to Europe are restricted at present, aircraft go with technical stops in transit countries, and flying around closed airspace adds fuel burn; the route comes out longer and more expensive, and it has to be counted before the arrival terminal is chosen.

Those five years in leasing showed the region from another side: the headquarters of many of the world's aircraft leasing players are gathered in Ireland for the tax regime, and Dublin appears twice in the table above. Geneva, which also holds two sites in the catalogue, hosts EBACE, the European business aviation show.

Alexander Filimonov — business aviation: sourcing, acquisition and entry into service of aircraft.