First bus Glasgow Wright StreetDeck Electroliner with Glasgow Airport Express branding departing Buchanan Bus Station for the airport.
Glasgow airport is Scotland’s second largest airport with just over eight million customers travelling through it in 2025, ranking it ninth by passenger usage in the United Kingdom. Glasgow airport is slightly unusual amongst British airports in that it is not served either by a direct rail link, a metro or light-rail service. The Case for Investment (CFI) overview for the Clyde Metro project (published by the Strathclyde Partnership for Transport in March 2025) includes four options to connect the airport with both Paisley and Glasgow city centre by “Light Rapid Transit” (LRT) links. However, as this overview document makes clear, it is going to be a few years before these proposals are realized.
Today, to get to the airport by public transport from the city centre, then the two options are by bus or by taxi. By bus, First Glasgow operates a high frequency express service from Buchanan Bus Station, picking up and dropping off at five other stops within the city centre, with stops close to the railways stations in central Glasgow, at Queen Street and Glasgow Central.
An Alexander Dennis BYD D8UR on the 500 route, rather than the Wright StreetDeck Electroliner. I travelled on this bus to the airport.
There is one other local option to get to the airport from Glasgow city centre by bus. First Glasgow operates route 77 which runs from Buchanan Bus Station to Glasgow Airport via Partick, the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Braehead Shopping Centre, Renfrew Cross and then the airport. The journey time for this trip is over 70 minutes, so if you are looking for a more leisurely journey, this is the bus to take. It runs every 30 minutes, Monday to Saturday and on Sundays too.
On this occasion, I took the Glasgow Airport Express. This runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The Monday to Friday daytime frequency (08.00am to 4.00pm) is one bus every 10 minutes, changing to one bus every 12 minutes (4.00pm to 7.00pm) and then one every 15 minutes (7.00pm to 8.00pm), before reducing to one bus every 20 minutes (8.00pm to 9.00pm) and then one bus every half hour from 9.00pm to midnight. In the small hours from midnight to 4.00am, there is one bus an hour. There is a combined Saturday and Sunday timetable which has similar bus times, though the most frequent services is one bus every 12 minutes rather than one every 10 minutes.
The upper deck interior of the Alexander Dennis BYD D8UR replacement bus on the 500 service. Both decks have CCTV for passenger security.
The Glasgow City Airport Express has a fixed departure point from Buchanan Bus Station (Stance 46) and a fixed arrival point at the airport (Stance 1) so there is little room for confusion about where the bus starts and ends. I bought a day ticket which cost me £16.50. A single fare is £11.00. For those travellers using the airport to go on holiday (or flying on a business trip), the open return fare is £17.50, which is valid for 28 days. Given that the airport is around nine miles from Glasgow city centre, the fare is not unreasonable for what is a premium, fast service.
First bus has a dedicated page on its website to this bus service [LINK]
https://www.firstbus.co.uk/greater-glasgow/routes-and-maps/glasgow-airport-express
I travelled out to the airport on an Alexander Dennis BYD D8UR substitute vehicle, rather than the “Glasgow Airport Express” branded Wright StreetDeck Electroliner that is pictured at the top of this article. I doubt that fellow travellers were bothered by this replacement, though there is less storage space for suitcases on such buses. The journey time from Buchanan Bus Station to the airport is around 15-20 minutes, depending on the traffic, road works and closures.
A Wright StreetDeck Electroliner at the Glasgow Airport terminus, Stance 1.
For the majority of its journey to the airport, the Express travels directly from the city centre onto the M8 motorway, where the speed limit, rather than being the usual 70mph, is 50mph or 60mph in significant stretches, so the traffic speed is more akin to a dual carriageway or a trunk road than a motorway. During times of heavy traffic (not uncommon on this route, as I know from experience) traffic speeds are of course, lower. That explains perhaps why there is no definitive journey time stated in the brochure for this route.
The interior of the Wright StreetDeck Electroliner, showing the luggage racks, which provide plenty of space for storage of suitcases on the short journey to Glasgow city centre.
Both the buses that I travelled on to the airport and back offered comfortable seating for the length of the journey, and were clean and smart, both inside and out. Internally, the Electroliner vehicles usefully have screens which show the route to and from the city centre, with upcoming stops.
On the inbound journey, the driver was helpful to the passengers who were looking for guidance on where to get off the bus, notably for connections by train from Queen Street or Glasgow Central. It was uplifting to see that despite being armed with smart phones (complete with apps and artificial intelligence), fellow passengers wanted the reassurance of human advice from the driver on where to alight and where to go from the bus stop to get to where they were going.
Airport Day Ticket, Glasgow City Express timetable brochure and Adult Single Ticket. Payment on the bus for the tickets was by contactless debit or credit card.
Overall, the Glasgow Airport Express is a fast and convenient service on comfortable buses, with plenty of storage space for suitcases and other large bags. I would certainly use this service again for when traveling to and from Glasgow city centre to the airport. One final clarification about the fares that I paid. Both the day return ticket at £16.50, and the singe from the airport at £11.00, could also be used for unlimited connecting travel on any First Glasgow service.
There are other bus and coach services to Glasgow airport from further afield which I have not mentioned here. The airport website includes a page which sets out these additional routes [LINK]
https://www.glasgowairport.com/to-and-from/bus-services/
The photographs for this article are all mine.
Steven Ardron
6 July 2026
