This 1300-foot runway ends with either a nice beach vacation or a sheer drop off a cliff
This hub sits at 14,000 feet above sea level, which they compensate for by having a runway that’s almost 3.5 miles long
“Runway” is a strong word, this is more of a groomed piece of ice that giant airplanes full of supplies have to take off and land on, without getting stuck or breaking through soft ice
This engineer’s nightmare has the city’s main highway cutting directly across the airport’s runway, stopping traffic every time a plane has to take off or land
The short runways here were slightly lengthened in after a crash in 1977, but pilots must still take a straight shot at the mountains and avoid them with a sharp bank in order to have enough room to land
The runway is somewhat short, but the real intense part of this airport is when the jets come to within 30-60 of tourists on the beach
This runway in the Alps has a snowy 1,700-foot runway, but the real challenge is the 18.5% grade that you have to navigate for takeoff and landing
The small mountain passage approach to a narrow runway is gnarly enough that only eight pilots in the entire world are deemed qualified enough to land here
This Norwegian airport has a significant structure built fully out of ice and permafrost. So much so that they’ve had to engineer insulation and cooling systems so that the airport never melts into a puddle
The semi-short runway is one thing, but the mountain range that surrounds the airport providing only one path in and out is a whole different ordeal
