Larissa State Airport "Thessaly" () was built in 1912. It was the commercial airport of

Larissa Larissa (; , , ) is the capital and largest city of the Thessaly region in Greece. It is the fifth-most populous city in Greece with a population of 148,562 in the city proper, according to the 2021 census. It is also the capital of the Larissa ...

until 1997 when it closed for civilian traffic. Currently the airport is being used only by military aircraft of the

Hellenic Air Force The Hellenic Air Force (HAF; , sometimes abbreviated as ΠΑ) is the air force of Greece (''Hellenic'' being the endonym for ''Greek'' in the Greek language). It is considered to be one of the largest air forces in NATO, and is globally placed 1 ...

, whose 110th Combat Wing (110 Πτέρυγα Μάχης, 110 ΠΜ) is stationed there. The runways do not have an ILS.

Location of the airport

The airport is very close to the city and to the suburban railway line to

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; ), also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, Salonika, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece (with slightly over one million inhabitants in its Thessaloniki metropolitan area, metropolitan area) and the capital cit ...

(3 km).

USAF

In May 2018, it was announced that

US Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...

(USAF)

MQ-9 Reaper The General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper (sometimes called Predator B) is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV, one component of an unmanned aircraft system (UAS)) capable of remotely controlled or autonomous flight operations, developed by General Atomi ...

drones were temporarily based at Larissa while their usual base in Africa was being updated, according to a

Pentagon In geometry, a pentagon () is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple polygon, simple pentagon is 540°. A pentagon may be simple or list of self-intersecting polygons, self-intersecting. A self-intersecting ...

spokesman, Eric Pahon. Although he declined to say which base was the normal site for MQ-9s, it is known that the USAF has been expanding facilities for MQ-9s at Nigerien Air Base 201 (

Agadez Agadez ( Air Tamajeq: ⴰⴶⴰⴷⴰⵣ, ''Agadaz''), formerly spelled Agadès, is the fifth largest city in Niger, with a population of 110,497 based on the 2012 census. The capital of the eponymous Agadez Region, the city lies in the Sahara ...

) in

Niger Niger, officially the Republic of the Niger, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is a unitary state Geography of Niger#Political geography, bordered by Libya to the Libya–Niger border, north-east, Chad to the Chad–Niger border, east ...

.Why are US drones being based in Greece for the first time?
Aaron Mehta, DefenseNews.com, 2018-05-23 US assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs A. Wess Mitchell also discussed the possibility of relocating a significant portion of US military assets to the premises.

References

External links

*
LGLR at Our Airports.comHellenic Air Force, LarissaAirliners.gr Larissa
Airports in Greece Buildings and structures in Larissa Transport infrastructure in Thessaly Hellenic Air Force bases 1912 establishments in Greece {{Greece-airport-stub