Flying to St Andrews for The Open 2027

The Open comes back to the Old Course on 15 to 18 July 2027. It is the 155th Open, the 31st at St Andrews, and the hundredth anniversary of Bobby Jones winning there in 1927. Every hotel room within forty miles is already spoken for, and a lot of the people who own those rooms are planning to arrive by air.

Here is the problem. The airfield that used to make this easy, Leuchars, five miles from the first tee, stopped accepting private flights this summer. Plenty of broker pages still list it as the closest airport. If your plan was written before July 2026, it needs redoing.

Where Do Private Jets Land for St Andrews Now?

Dundee (EGPN) is the closest airport that still takes private aircraft, about 15 miles from St Andrews. Edinburgh (EGPH) is the fallback for anything too big for Dundee, 48 miles away. Perth Airport at Scone is a third option, but only for turboprops and smaller.

Dundee is the answer for most people. Its runway is 1,400 metres, which takes light jets and many midsize ones, and every turboprop you would consider. The drive to St Andrews is 25 to 30 minutes. Dundee Airport is run by HIAL and requires prior permission (PPR) for private arrivals. Its own team handles all aircraft except private light aircraft, which can self-handle with notice. Jet A1 is available on the field.

Edinburgh is the one you pick when the aircraft is large, or when Dundee has no room. It has a proper business aviation terminal run by Signature, with an on-site customs office and published hours of 0600 to 2200 local, call-out by request. The runway is about 2,560 metres, so no business jet is too big for it. The price is the drive: 48 miles, normally 60 to 75 minutes across the Queensferry Crossing and up the M90 and A91, and a lot longer in Open week.

What Changed at Leuchars?

Leuchars lost its radars on 1 July 2026, and with them its civilian traffic. The RAF called it a long-planned change. The site is run by the British Army, military air traffic control and Grob Tutor training continue, but executive jets can no longer land. The Ministry of Defence said the small number of private flights can use other airfields. Trade press reported the change on 20 August 2026.

It mattered because Leuchars was the golf airfield. The Ministry's own figure, given to Parliament in October 2025, was 100 private aircraft landing there between 30 October 2023 and then. At the 2022 Open at St Andrews, local press reported that private jets, including Tiger Woods' Gulfstream G550, used the Army base. The old logic was simple: land, walk to a car, be on the first tee in fifteen minutes.

That logic is gone. What has not gone is the information. A lot of broker and "private jet golf" pages written in 2024 and 2025 still say Leuchars. Some operators will quote you for it without checking. If a quote names Leuchars (ADX), ask where the aircraft is actually landing before you pay a deposit.

Dundee, Edinburgh or Perth: What Each One Is Really Like

Dundee has done this before. In 2015, the Courier reported more than 120 private jets booked in for Dunhill Links week, although the airport manager's confirmed count at that point was over 60. It is the busiest airfield in the HIAL group, which tells you it can cope with a rush. It is also small. The apron is not Heathrow's, and parking for a full week of jets is finite.

That is why Open week at Dundee will run on slots and on pilots who plan the parking before they plan the flight. The practical rule: aircraft that drop and go are far easier to accommodate than aircraft that sit for four days. A turboprop that drops you at 0900 and flies back to Prestwick or Edinburgh to wait is often better for everyone, you included.

Edinburgh copes with volume more easily. The trade-off is the road. If you are going to the course for a 0800 tee time and your wheels touch down at 0700, you will not make it from Edinburgh. You make it from Dundee.

Perth Airport (EGPT) at Scone sits three miles north-east of Perth and is used by private and business aircraft and pilot training. Its main runway, 03/21, is 853 metres. That is a PC-12 or King Air question, not a jet question, and your operator will want to run the performance numbers for the day's temperature and weight before saying yes. The airport lists opening hours of 0900 to 1700 every day, with out-of-hours access by prior arrangement. Customs is not something to assume: one directory lists it as on request, so check before you book. Perth is about 30 miles from St Andrews by road. It makes sense when the plan is a Gleneagles or Perthshire base rather than St Andrews itself.

The Airfields Side by Side

Check every one of these for Open week. Opening hours, PPR rules and any slot system for The Open will not be published until much closer to the event, and several figures above come from airport and directory pages that disagree slightly on hours.

Open Week: Slots, Parking and Timing

We have found no published slot system from Dundee or HIAL for The Open 2027 yet. That is normal at this stage. It does not mean there will not be one. Treat the following as how this tends to work, not as a rule.

Arrive on the days people do not. Thursday and Friday are rounds one and two, and the arrival peak is the Wednesday before and the Thursday morning. A Tuesday or Wednesday arrival at a quiet hour gets you a parking slot and a car. Sunday afternoon departures are the other peak: every jet wants to leave at once. Fly out on Monday or hold your departure until late evening.

Think about positioning. An aircraft that stays at Dundee all week pays parking and uses a scarce slot. An aircraft that drops you and returns to a base elsewhere in Scotland, or to England, doubles the flying but frees the apron. Ask your operator to price both, then choose the one that survives a delay.

Expect temporary airspace restrictions around the course during the event. Pilots and operators check the NOTAMs and any Department for Transport restriction notice. For you, it means helicopters and drones are not free to wander near the links, and your pilot will not take a shortcut.

Cost. Market rates, not ours: a King Air 200 starts around £1,400 an hour and a PC-12 runs £1,600 to £3,400 (we break that down in the turboprop vs light jet comparison). A light jet is more. From London, Dundee is about 290 nautical miles, roughly 75 minutes in a turboprop and about an hour in a light jet. A one-way turboprop trip will run from low thousands of pounds, and Open week demand pushes quotes up. If you are flexible on days, an empty leg positioning into Scotland can take a real bite out of it, though in a week like this they are scarcer than usual.

Can You Take a Helicopter to the Course?

Yes, in practice, but there is no guarantee of an official landing site, and you need the landowner's permission wherever you set down. In 2022 a field behind the new Madras College, a stone's throw from the Old Course, became an informal helicopter car park. The Courier reported dozens of helicopters over the four days, coming from Gleneagles, Edinburgh, the Channel Islands and further afield, with passengers paying thousands of pounds to avoid the traffic. We found nothing official yet on what will be available in 2027.

So the honest answer is that it depends, and the thing it depends on is arrangements made months ahead. Helicopter operators who do this every Open will already be talking to landowners and hotels. A hotel or estate with its own helipad and the right permissions is the safest way to land close to the course. Gleneagles, for one, lists a helipad, and its helicopter landings are arranged on request.

A twin-engine executive helicopter, the sort that does this job, runs roughly £2,800 to more than £4,500 an hour on published UK guide rates in 2026, with landing fees, positioning and VAT on top. Edinburgh to St Andrews across the Forth is a flight of around twenty minutes. That is the whole appeal: you swap a 60 to 75 minute drive for twenty minutes in the air. In Open week, when the roads are slow and the hotel rooms are far out, it can be worth the money. It will not be cheap.

One discipline for anyone planning to arrive by helicopter: get the return in writing. A landing site you reached on Thursday morning may not be there on Sunday evening.

Turning It Into a Golf Trip

The Open is a spectacle but one week. What the airfield change does is push you to fly into Dundee, and Dundee is better placed for a longer trip than Leuchars ever was.

Carnoustie is on the Angus coast on the other side of Dundee, so it is the natural pair with St Andrews: one landing, two courses, no second flight. One guide puts it at around 45 minutes from the Home of Golf by road.

Kingsbarns, about seven miles from St Andrews and 20 minutes by road, is the course people book for the day before or after.

Gleneagles is the Perthshire half of the trip. It is further by road, roughly an hour and a quarter from St Andrews, so it makes more sense to fly into Perth or arrive by helicopter. If you are flying fixed-wing to Gleneagles, Perth Airport at Scone is the sensible field, and the hotel can arrange a helicopter landing.

For a four-night trip, a sensible pattern is St Andrews on the Open days, Carnoustie and Kingsbarns the following days, Gleneagles last. One aircraft sits at Dundee for the St Andrews end and a car does the rest. For more Scottish golf by air, the Islay trip pairs the Machrie with a light aircraft, and if you want a longer-range read on the helicopter-or-plane decision, Goodwood by helicopter or plane covers the same trade-off for another event.

Across the Irish Sea, the same aircraft logic takes you to Ballybunion, Lahinch or Royal Portrush, with customs on the way. See an Ireland golf trip by private plane.

When Should You Book?

Book the aircraft and the ground handling now if you want a specific arrival time, and ask for the landing airfield in writing. We would make the decision on three points: aircraft choice, airfield, and where the aircraft sleeps.

The practical timeline is straightforward. Decide your arrival and departure days by early 2027. Find out which airfield the operator is actually planning to use. Ask what happens if Dundee is full on the day. Get the PPR, the handling and any parking confirmed in writing as soon as they open, as soon as they open. Then confirm the car and the helicopter, if you need one, the same week.

The failure mode is not the flight. It is the transfer at the other end. Plenty of private trips are lost to a car that did not come or an airport that was too far from the course. Dundee solves the second problem. The first one is just a phone call.

Private aviation is what we arrange. Over a week as congested as this one, the work is in the details nobody sees: which field, what slot, which aircraft can use it, who is meeting you, and what the backup is when the weather turns. We use the best intelligence available to narrow it down, and people who make the calls when the plan stops matching the day. If your plan still says Leuchars, send it to us and we will tell you what needs to change.

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