airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surfa ...

Kiribati Kiribati (), officially the Republic of Kiribati ( gil, ibaberikiKiribati),Kiribati
''The Wor ...

South Tarawa South Tarawa ( gil, Tarawa Teinainano) is the capital and hub of the Republic of Kiribati and home to more than half of Kiribati's population. The South Tarawa population centre consists of all the small islets from Betio in the west to Bonri ...

islet An islet is a very small, often unnamed island. Most definitions are not precise, but some suggest that an islet has little or no vegetation and cannot support human habitation. It may be made of rock, sand and/or hard coral; may be permanen ...

atoll An atoll () is a ring-shaped island, including a coral rim that encircles a lagoon partially or completely. There may be coral islands or cays on the rim. Atolls are located in warm tropical or subtropical oceans and seas where corals can gro ...

Tarawa Tarawa is an atoll and the capital of the Republic of Kiribati,Kiribati
''

Gilbert Islands The Gilbert Islands ( gil, Tungaru;Reilly Ridgell. ''Pacific Nations and Territories: The Islands of Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia.'' 3rd. Ed. Honolulu: Bess Press, 1995. p. 95. formerly Kingsmill or King's-Mill IslandsVery often, this n ...

, precisely on

Bonriki Bonriki is a settlement on Tarawa atoll, Kiribati, near Temwaiku and is part of the municipality of South Tarawa. It is in the south-east of South Tarawa. Bonriki International Airport, one of two international airports in Kiribati, is located he ...

.

Fiji Fiji ( , ,; fj, Viti, ; Fiji Hindi: फ़िजी, ''Fijī''), officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consis ...

's national carrier,

Fiji Airways Fiji Airways (trading as and formerly known as Air Pacific) is the flag carrier airline of Fiji and operates international services from its hubs in Fiji to 13 countries and 26 cities including, Australia, New Zealand, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, ...

connects Kiribati with Nadi, which is Fiji Airways' hub and Fiji's main international gateway. Nauru Airlines flies to Nauru International Airport, continuing to

Honiara Honiara () is the capital and largest city of Solomon Islands, situated on the northwestern coast of Guadalcanal. , it had a population of 92,344 people. The city is served by Honiara International Airport and the seaport of Point Cruz, and li ...

, the capital of

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 900 smaller islands in Oceania, to the east of Papua New Guinea and north-west of Vanuatu. It has a land area of , and a population of approx. 700,000. Its capit ...

, and further to

Brisbane Brisbane ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Queensland, and the third-most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of approximately 2.6 million. Brisbane lies at the centre of the South ...

,

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...

. This service was suspended from July 2008 to November 2009, but later replaced by the same route with

Solomon Airlines Solomon Airlines is the national airline of Solomon Islands, based in Honiara. History Solomon Airlines was established in 1962 as a charter airline by Laurie Crowley. Crowley had a charter operation in Papua New Guinea with occasional charte ...

(Bonriki-Honiara-Brisbane). The airport is the hub of the only two Kiribati airlines, flag carrier Air Kiribati and the 2009-established Coral Sun Airways, with both airlines mainly flying domestic routes within the

Gilbert Islands The Gilbert Islands ( gil, Tungaru;Reilly Ridgell. ''Pacific Nations and Territories: The Islands of Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia.'' 3rd. Ed. Honolulu: Bess Press, 1995. p. 95. formerly Kingsmill or King's-Mill IslandsVery often, this n ...

. Air Kiribati and Coral Sun Airways both serve all 16 other airports in the Gilbert Islands, but not all these destinations are flown directly from Tarawa. Coral Sun Airways is considering buying another, larger aircraft, capable of flying to the

Phoenix Islands The Phoenix Islands, or Rawaki, are a group of eight atolls and two submerged coral reefs that lie east of the Gilbert Islands and west of the Line Islands in the central Pacific Ocean, north of Samoa. They are part of the Republic of Kiri ...

and

Line Islands The Line Islands, Teraina Islands or Equatorial Islands (in Gilbertese, ''Aono Raina'') are a chain of 11 atolls (with partly or fully enclosed lagoons) and coral islands (with a surrounding reef) in the central Pacific Ocean, south of the Haw ...

. As of 2018, only the Line Islands can be flown to, but these can only be reached by flying via Fiji.

History

The airport was built in December 1943 by

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

Seabee , colors = , mascot = Bumblebee , battles = Guadalcanal, Bougainville, Cape Gloucester, Los Negros, Guam, Peleliu, Tarawa, Kwajalein, Saipan, Tinian, Iwo Jima, Philippin ...

s and was named "Mullinix Field", in honor of Rear Admiral Henry M. Mullinix, who died in the sinking of the USS ''Liscome Bay'' on 24 November 1943 after it was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine off the

Gilbert Islands The Gilbert Islands ( gil, Tungaru;Reilly Ridgell. ''Pacific Nations and Territories: The Islands of Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia.'' 3rd. Ed. Honolulu: Bess Press, 1995. p. 95. formerly Kingsmill or King's-Mill IslandsVery often, this n ...

. Almost immediately after the completion of the runway, it became the nexus of

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

(USAAF) operations from Tarawa, as the runway at nearby Hawkins Field on

Betio Betio is the largest township of Kiribati's capital city, South Tarawa, and the country's main port. The settlement is located on a separate islet at the extreme southwest of the atoll. Betio Post Office opened on 5 April 1957 and closed in 1964 ...

was too short for safe bomber operations. The longer runway at Mullinix became the base for the

VII Bomber Command The VII Bomber Command is an inactive United States Air Force unit. Its last assignment was with Seventh Air Force, based on Okinawa. It was inactivated on 31 March 1946. It engaged in patrol operations from Hawaii from January 1942. On the n ...

Headquarters, which directed operations against Japanese forces in the

Marshall Islands The Marshall Islands ( mh, Ṃajeḷ), officially the Republic of the Marshall Islands ( mh, Aolepān Aorōkin Ṃajeḷ),'' () is an independent island country and microstate near the Equator in the Pacific Ocean, slightly west of the Inte ...

. In addition, the USAAF stationed the

B-24 Liberator The Consolidated B-24 Liberator is an American heavy bomber, designed by Consolidated Aircraft of San Diego, California. It was known within the company as the Model 32, and some initial production aircraft were laid down as export models ...

-equipped

11th Bombardment Group An international call prefix, international dial-out code or international direct dial code (IDD code) is a trunk prefix that indicates an international phone call. In the dialling sequence, the prefix precedes the country calling code (and, furt ...

and

B-25 Mitchell The North American B-25 Mitchell is an American medium bomber that was introduced in 1941 and named in honor of Major General William "Billy" Mitchell, a pioneer of U.S. military aviation. Used by many Allied air forces, the B-25 served in ...

-equipped 41st Bombardment Group at the airfield. In April 1944, the land-based units moved forward to Kwajalein Airfield in the

Marshall Islands The Marshall Islands ( mh, Ṃajeḷ), officially the Republic of the Marshall Islands ( mh, Aolepān Aorōkin Ṃajeḷ),'' () is an independent island country and microstate near the Equator in the Pacific Ocean, slightly west of the Inte ...

, and shortly thereafter, Mullinix was reduced to an emergency airfield. By the end of the war, the Americans abandoned the facilities and the airfield was turned into a civilian airport.www.pacificwrecks.com
/ref>

Facilities

The airport is at an

elevation The elevation of a geographic location is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational surface (see Geodetic datum § ...

of above

mean sea level There are several kinds of mean in mathematics, especially in statistics. Each mean serves to summarize a given group of data, often to better understand the overall value ( magnitude and sign) of a given data set. For a data set, the '' ...

. It has one

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt, concrete ...

designated 09/27 with an

asphalt Asphalt, also known as bitumen (, ), is a sticky, black, highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product, and is classed as a pitch. Before the 20th century, the term ...

surface measuring .

Airlines and destinations

References

External links

Arrivals and Departures for Bonriki Airport
* *
{{authority control Airports in Kiribati South Tarawa Airfields of the United States Army Air Forces in the Pacific Ocean theatre of World War II Airfields of the United States Army Air Forces Air Transport Command in the Pacific Ocean Theater Airports established in 1943 1943 establishments in Oceania

History

Facilities

Airlines and destinations

See also

References

External links