What needs to be done before the aeroplane takes off? How many airlines fly to Prague? Who are the most unusual employees of the airport? These questions and even more will be answered during the airport backstage tours. Even during the winter, you can enjoy visiting Prague Airport and getting to know it better! If it is raining or snowing, you will have the opportunity to see different machines used for winter maintenance of the airport and to keep its aeroplanes working (e.g. defrosting of aeroplanes before departing). All tours need to be pre-booked!
Prague Airport has been organizing backstage tours for those who would love to pilot a plane, for ladies who would like to try how it feels to be a flight attendant, and also for your curious little kids who love planes! You can choose from several tours during which you can access runways and hangars and visit firefighters in their stations, who are always prepared for action. Lovers of aerial photos will enjoy a special tour with the possibility of spending more time in the vicinity of planes during their take-off and landing and taking beautiful pictures for their family album!
Winter tours take place from 5th January to 31st March, even in bad weather conditions! If it snows, you can watch many winter machines working, including the defrosting of aeroplanes before the take-off and other fascinating operations. These excursions are suitable for small and big kids, adults and seniors. Also, some individual tours are planned during the spring holiday (from 6th February to 19th March).
For more information and bookings, click here.
One Airport, Seven Tour Circuits
Prague Airport can be discovered in detail during our tours. You can choose from seven tour circuits, each of which will take you no more than two hours. All tours need to be pre-booked on the airport’s website. All guided tours begin in Terminal 3.
And what do you see during the tour? The first route will take you to areas you already know if you have travelled from Prague Airport. You will see the check-in areas of all terminals, the terminal for government flights, the Civil Aviation Authority of the Czech Republic, the rescue service areas and the VIP saloons. Route 3 offers a similar program – a walking tour in Terminals 1 and 2, specially designed for all visitors from the area of tourism and services who have reached the age of 15.
Raptors – Unusual Airport Workers
Younger children will enjoy Tour 2. During this tour, you will visit a rescue fire station, travel by bus around planes, and get to know various professions and activities that need to be done before a plane takes off and after it arrives. You will get some information about the biological protection of the airport, which prevents the planes from colliding with birds and other animals. And you will also meet the raptors – the unexpected “employees” of the airport.
You can meet the birds when choosing Tour 5, too. This one is accessible to all visitors who have reached the age of six. Apart from the biological protection of the airport, you will access hangars of the Civil Aviation Authority of the Czech Republic, the Travel Service Company, and the Airport Surfaces Control, which takes care of the runways. During the tour, you will also visit Czech Airlines’ training centre.
If you are more interested in the safety conditions of the airport, don’t hesitate to choose Tour 4. The guide will lead you to the areas of a rescue fire station, including the polygon. You will learn about the work of airport firefighters and about different extinguishing methods of certain types of aeroplanes.
Tour 6 will lead you to a rescue service station with its employee – a fireman, who will explain how the station works and its techniques. Of course, you will be able to see the runways and planes during their take-off and landing.
Tour F (photo-tour) is a special tour, not only for amateur photographers who can take pictures of planes from a minimal distance, from runways, with the possibility of getting off the bus. It is suitable for visitors who have reached the age of 15. The tour is approximately 150 minutes long.
Viewing Platforms Near the Airport
In the airport’s immediate vicinity, lovers of airport operation can admire departures and arrivals of aeroplanes thanks to viewing earthworks near the villages of Kněževes and Hostivice. From these viewpoints, you can take photos of everything on the airport surfaces above the level of the fence around the airport area.
The viewpoints are located in the two most frequented spotter places – near the runway RWY 06/24, which is easily accessible from Kněževes, and near the crossing of take-off and landing runways RWY 12/30 and RWY 06/24, which is accessible by a footpath from the town of Hostivice.
The airport’s viewpoints have been supplemented by information boards displaying some curiosities about regular types of planes and a map of the airport. The viewpoints and their surroundings are being controlled due to safety instructions on a regular basis.