Domodedovo Airport () (IATA: DME, ICAO: UUDD), formally Domodedovo Mikhail Lomonosov International Airport, is an international airport serving Moscow, the capital of Russia. It is located in Domodedovo, Moscow Oblast, south-southeast from the city centre of Moscow. Domodedovo Airport is one of the four major Moscow airports, one of the largest airports in Russia, and the eighth-busiest airport in Europe. In 2017, it served 30.7 million passengers, an increase of 7.6% compared to 2016, making it the second busiest airport in Russia, after the main primary airport serving Moscow, Sheremetyevo International Airport.
In 2019, following a naming contest and a presidential decree, the airport was renamed after Russian scientist Mikhail Lomonosov.
History
The airport is named after the town of Domodedovo, on the territory of which it is located.
Survey work on the construction of the new Capital Airport began in 1948, after a decision by the Politburo. It was then described as special "Facility No. 306".
The Domodedovo Airport is on the former territory of a village called Elgazino (). The village's wrecked wooden houses (Izba) at and cemetery with 19th century tombstones at remained in the early 21st century, less than a kilometer west of the runway, almost immediately behind the fences. The first mention of Elgazino dates back to the 16th century. In 1550, Tsar Ivan the Terrible gave his voivode and boyar Ivan Vasilyevich Sheremetyev a smaller estate in the Moscow district with 150 quarters of land. In 1627, the village appears again in the records and appears as a village of Elgozino on a pond with five peasant households, in the parish of the Church of the Resurrection in the village of Kolychevo. According to the results of the General Survey of the 1760s, the village already had 25 households and 218 inhabitants. In the 1950s, just before the village was demolished, it had a population of about 200 people.
In 1951, preparatory work on construction began: cutting firebreaks, and construction of access roads, including roads from Paveletskaya.
A 1954 Resolution of the Council of Ministers of 13 November approved the proposal of the Main Directorate of the Civil Air Fleet under the Council of Ministers of the USSR on the construction of the second airport of the Moscow civil air fleet near the village Elgazin Podolsky (now Domodedovo) Moscow Oblast.
In 1958, a decree of the USSR Council of Ministers enabled completion of construction of the first stage of the airport in 1962.
In 1962, an Order of the Head of Main Directorate of Civil Aviation, issued on 7 April No. 200 ("On the organization of the Moscow Domodedovo airport") ordered "organize as part of the Moscow Transport Aviation Management Directorate the new airport, and continue to call it the Moscow Domodedovo Airport". Therefore, 7 April 1962 is considered the official birthday of the airport. By the end of 1962, after the official approbation, the airport began flights by postal and cargo planes.
Services from Domodedovo began in March 1964 with a flight to Sverdlovsk using a Tupolev 104. The airport, intended to handle the growth of long-distance domestic traffic in the Soviet Union, was officially opened in May 1965. A second runway, parallel to the existing one, entered service eighteen months after the opening of the airport. On 26 December 1975, Domodedovo Airport was selected for the inaugural flight of the Tupolev Tu-144 to Alma Ata.
In 1993–1994, East Line Group, founded by Urals entrepreneurs Anton Bakov and Dmitry Kamenschik, who built capital in the early 1990s by hauling cargo from Asian countries to Russia, invested in several facilities at Domodedovo, including a new customs terminal and catering services. In late 1996, Kamenschik-led East Line Group privatized the terminal facilities of Domodedovo Airport and formed JSC 'International Airport Domodedovo' and several other commercial entities controlling the airfield operations at the airport. Since 1998, the runways, air traffic control, and communication facilities have been formally on lease to a subsidiary of East Line Group. Later, in 2005 and 2008, the legality of these deals with East Line Group was contested by the Russian Rosimushchestvo government agency supervising the state property.
East Line's strategic goal to stabilize the airport's future and to establish Domodedovo as an important international and multi-modal transportation hub was gradually achieved throughout the 2000s. In the 2000s, East Line Group began to heavily invest in reconstruction and modernization of the outdated airport facilities.