Porto Santo Airport () is an

international airport An international airport is an airport with customs and border control facilities enabling passengers to travel between countries. International airports are usually larger than domestic airports, and feature longer runways and have faciliti ...

located in Vila Baleira, the capital of

Porto Santo Island Porto Santo Island () is a Portuguese island and municipality northeast of Madeira Island in the North Atlantic Ocean; it is the northernmost and easternmost island of the archipelago of Madeira, located in the Atlantic Ocean west of Europe a ...

Madeira Madeira ( ; ), officially the Autonomous Region of Madeira (), is an autonomous Regions of Portugal, autonomous region of Portugal. It is an archipelago situated in the North Atlantic Ocean, in the region of Macaronesia, just under north of ...

. The military Maneuver Aerodrome n.° 3 (''Aeródromo de Manobra n.º 3'') or AM3 is co-located within the limits of civilian Porto Santo Airport.

History

The island of Porto Santo was the first of the Madeira Islands to obtain an airport. In 1959, its runway was built with an initial length of . The first aircraft to land at this airport was a

TAP Air Portugal TAP Air Portugal is the flag carrier of Portugal, headquartered at Lisbon Airport which also serves as its airline hub, hub. TAP – Transportes Aéreos Portugueses – has been a member of the Star Alliance since 2005 and operates on average 2, ...

Douglas DC-4 The Douglas DC-4 is an American four-engined (piston), propeller-driven airliner developed by the Douglas Aircraft Company. Military versions of the plane, the C-54 and R5D, served during World War II, in the Berlin Airlift and into the 1960 ...

, on 20 July 1960. The airport's infrastructure has improved over time, with increases to the runway length and in ramp surface. The last improvements to the airport structure were finalized on 28 August 1995, with the inauguration of a new passenger terminal and a new increase in runway length, which then reached . The runway was also re-paved.

Management

Porto Santo Airport is managed by

ANA Aeroportos de Portugal ANA Aeroportos de Portugal is an airport operator in Portugal owned by Vinci Airports. Among others, it operates Portugal's largest airport, Lisbon Airport. The initialism "ANA" stands for ''Aeroportos e Navegação Aérea'', Portuguese for "A ...

Facilities

The airport has a asphalt/concrete runway, with no ILS equipment as of 2011, but with VOR and NDB approaches available.

Military air base

The Maneuver Aerodrome no 3 (AM3) is a

Portuguese Air Force The Portuguese Air Force () is the air force, aerial warfare force of Portugal. Locally it is referred to by the acronym FAP but internationally is often referred to by the acronym PRTAF. It is the youngest of the three branches of the Portuguese ...

forward air base which shares its aeronautical facilities with the Porto Santo Airport. The AM3 was created in 2009 by the transformation of the previous Madeira Air Detachment. It does not have permanently based flying squadrons, but supports permanent detachments of the Squadron 502 (

EADS CASA C-295 The Airbus C295 (previously CASA C-295) is a medium tactical transport aircraft that was designed and initially manufactured by the Spanish aerospace company CASA, which is now part of the European multinational Airbus Defence and Space divi ...

aircraft) and Squadron 751 ( AgustaWestland EH101 helicopters), which focus in

search and rescue Search and rescue (SAR) is the search for and provision of aid to people who are in distress or imminent danger. The general field of search and rescue includes many specialty sub-fields, typically determined by the type of terrain the search ...

missions.

Airlines and destinations

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

Statistics

References

External links

Official website
{{authority control Airports in Portugal

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

Buildings and structures in Madeira Transport in Madeira