King Hussein International Airport


King Hussein International Airport,,, also informally known as Aqaba Airport, is a minor international airport located in the vicinity of a northern suburb of Aqaba, Jordan. It is the country's sole other scheduled commercial airport besides the much larger Queen Alia International Airport in Amman.

Location

The location of Aqaba is unusual, for within a 15 miles radius there are three other countries, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Israel. The airport has a single runway equipped with a category 1 instrument landing system. Thanks to its normally excellent weather conditions, the airport is rarely closed, though strong southerly winds bring sandstorms across the Red Sea from Egypt. Just across the border in Israel and nominally serving Eilat a new airport called Ramon Airport opened in 2019 despite earlier proposals to jointly develop airport infrastructure in the region following the Israel Jordan Peace Treaty of 1994.

Operations

Annual passenger figures have risen from around 20,000 per year in the early days to over 90,000 in 2000. There are around 3,000 aircraft movements a year. A significant proportion of these are training flights, including those of the Royal Jordanian Air Force. The largest operator at Aqaba is Royal Jordanian.

Facilities

Terminal

The airport has a single 28,000 sq ft terminal building with just one departure gate and one baggage carousel, though the building is being extended. The facilities can cope when there is one aircraft to be handled, but on some occasions when there are three aircraft being turned around simultaneously things can become somewhat crowded. The capacity of the Terminal at present is 1.5 million passengers a year. The airport has 4 check-in desks, 2 gates, a cargo building and a cargo apron together with a parallel taxiway. The airport has one baggage claim belt, 200 short-term parking spaces, a post office, bank, cafeterias, VIP lounge, duty-free shop, and gift shops, and a clinic.

Infrastructure

A new cargo terminal and a new cargo apron opened in January 2005. There are also separate buildings for General Aviation and a Royal Pavilion – King Abdullah II owns a palace along the shoreline and regularly visits. The Royal Jordanian Air Academy are also regular visitors on land-away cross country training exercises. The airport includes also buildings for the Ayla Aviation Academy, the Aero Wings for Industry's assembly plant for light planes, the Jordan Private Jets Services 's private jet terminal, and the Al Baddad International Group's maintenance centre.

Airlines and destinations

The following airlines operate regular scheduled and charter flights at Aqaba Airport: