Mota Lava Airport is an airport located on the island of

Mota Lava Mota Lava or Motalava is an island of the Banks group, in the north of Vanuatu. It forms a single coral system with the small island of Ra. The 2009 census figures give a population of 1,640 inhabitants (Mota Lava + Ra), which amounts to a p ...

, one of the Banks Islands in the Torba

province A province is an administrative division within a country or sovereign state, state. The term derives from the ancient Roman , which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire, Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...

Vanuatu Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (; ), is an island country in Melanesia located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of northern Australia, northeast of New Caledonia, east o ...

. Also known as ''Valua Airport'', it is located on the eastern end of Motalava island, near the village of

Aplow Aplow, ''Valuwa'', or ''Valuga'', is a village located on the eastern part of Mota Lava, in the Banks Islands of Vanuatu Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (; ), is an island country in Melanesia located in the South Pacif ...

(formerly known as ''Valuwa'').

Characteristics

The airport is situated at an

elevation The elevation of a geographic location (geography), ''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 equipotenti ...

of above

mean sea level A mean is a quantity representing the "center" of a collection of numbers and is intermediate to the extreme values of the set of numbers. There are several kinds of means (or "measures of central tendency") in mathematics, especially in statist ...

. It has one

runway In aviation, a runway is an elongated, rectangular surface designed for the landing and takeoff of an aircraft. Runways may be a human-made surface (often asphalt concrete, asphalt, concrete, or a mixture of both) or a natural surface (sod, ...

, in length. Out of the four airports in the Torba province, Valua Airport has the length and reliability advantage.

Air Vanuatu Air Vanuatu is an airline with its head office in Air Vanuatu House, Port Vila, Vanuatu. It is Vanuatu's national flag carrier, formerly operating to Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia and points in the Oceania, South Pacific. Its main base is ...

coordinates all maintenance and rehabilitation programs of the building facilities, including the runway. Identical to other island aircraft ports throughout the archipelago, safety and security fencing is still lacking. Valua airport is 12 km from the island's main center. There may be one or two four-wheel drive vehicles available on some flights, but their availability is not guaranteed. One can also hike to the island's center by foot in just under three hours. Water sources are scarce and many are unsafe for drinking. At times there are road markets, basically non-cooked island crops up for sale, with hot meals being occasionally served. No clinic or restroom can be found near the airport boundary.

Airlines and destinations

References

External links

* {{authority control Airports in Vanuatu Torba Province