Sharjah International 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 east-southeast of

Sharjah Sharjah (; ', Gulf Arabic: ''aš-Šārja'') is the List of cities in the United Arab Emirates, third-most populous city in the United Arab Emirates, after Dubai and Abu Dhabi. It is the capital of the Emirate of Sharjah and forms part of the D ...

, United Arab Emirates. It is spread over an area of . It is the 3rd busiest airport in the country as well as the 10th busiest airport in the Middle East. It has one runway, and is the only airport in Sharjah capable of international flights as of 2022. By 2027, it is expected to increase its capacity to 25 million passengers annually.

Overview

Sharjah International Airport is the third largest Middle East air freight hub in cargo tonnage, according to official 2015 statistics from Airports Council International. Ground services company, Sharjah Aviation Services, handled 586,195 tonnes in 2015 – a 16.1% increase year on year. It has one passenger terminal with an area of . Sharjah International Airport is home base of the

low-cost carrier A low-cost carrier (LCC) or low-cost airline, also called a budget, or discount carrier or airline, is an airline that is operated with an emphasis on minimizing operating costs. It sacrifices certain traditional airline luxuries for cheaper fa ...

Air Arabia Air Arabia ( ''al-ʿArabiyya Lit-Ṭayarāan'') is an Emirati low-cost airline with its head office in the A1 Building Sharjah Freight Center, Sharjah International Airport, United Arab Emirates (UAE). The airline operates scheduled services to ...

. The headquarters of Air Arabia is in the Sharjah Freight Center,Contact Info
." Air Arabia. Retrieved on 21 June 2010. "Air Arabia (UAE) Air Arabia Head Quarters Sharjah Freight Center (Cargo), near Sharjah International Airport P.O. Box 132 Sharjah, United Arab Emirates" on the property of the airportSobie, Brendan.

" ''

Flight International ''Flight International'', formerly ''Flight'', is a monthly magazine focused on aerospace. Published in the United Kingdom and founded in 1909 as "A Journal devoted to the Interests, Practice, and Progress of Aerial Locomotion and Transport", i ...

''. 23 April 2007. Retrieved on 8 February 2011. "Air Arabia's headquarters is hidden in a dated cargo terminal at Sharjah airport, a 15km (9 miles) drive from central Dubai, which should take 15 minutes but can take up to two hours during rush hour." in Sharjah, UAE. The center is an old cargo terminal. It replaced RAF Sharjah, which was closer to the city and was opened in 1932. It was the first airport in UAE and the

Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf The Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf (), also known as the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC; ), is a regional, intergovernmental, political, and economic union comprising Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the Uni ...

, for use by

Imperial Airways Imperial Airways was an early British commercial long-range airline, operating from 1924 to 1939 and principally serving the British Empire routes to South Africa, India, Australia and the Far East, including Malaya and Hong Kong. Passengers ...

, and was subsequently used by the RAF until 14 December 1971. The reason for the move was development pressure from the city of Sharjah. The old terminal and tower building is now Al Mahatta Museum. The old airport's runway is now part of King Abdul Aziz Street in the city centre. The airport was used by the

United States 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 ...

926th Tactical Fighter Group The 926th Wing is an Air Reserve Component of the United States Air Force (USAF). It is assigned to the Tenth Air Force, Air Force Reserve Command, stationed at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada. The unit is a composite organization consisting of ...

during Operation Desert Shield/Storm. Approximately 450 members of the unit were stationed at the airport, which flew

A-10 Thunderbolt II The Fairchild Republic A-10 , also infamously known under the nickname , is a single-seat, twinjet, twin-turbofan, straight wing, straight-wing, Subsonic aircraft, subsonic attack aircraft developed by Fairchild Aircraft, Fairchild Republic ...

ground attack aircraft during the conflict in late 1990 and early 1991.

Facilities

The airport is at an elevation 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, ...

designated 12/30 with an

asphalt Asphalt most often refers to: * Bitumen, also known as "liquid asphalt cement" or simply "asphalt", a viscous form of petroleum mainly used as a binder in asphalt concrete * Asphalt concrete, a mixture of bitumen with coarse and fine aggregates, u ...

surface measuring . Founded in 1985, Sharjah Airport Travel Agency is owned by the Sharjah Airport Authority, Government of Sharjah and has 14 branches in the UAE, including one on the first floor of the main terminal at Sharjah Airport. There are two

prayer room A chapel (from , a diminutive of ''cappa'', meaning "little cape") is a Christianity, Christian place of prayer and worship that is usually relatively small. The term has several meanings. First, smaller spaces inside a church that have their o ...

s available, one in the transit area of the Arrivals Terminal and the other on the ground floor of the Departures Terminal. There are

mosque A mosque ( ), also called a masjid ( ), is a place of worship for Muslims. The term usually refers to a covered building, but can be any place where Salah, Islamic prayers are performed; such as an outdoor courtyard. Originally, mosques were si ...

s in both the East and West Cargo Terminals 3 and 4.

Airlines and destinations

Passenger

The following airlines operate regular scheduled and charter flights to and from Sharjah:

Cargo

Statistics

Accidents and incidents

*On 15 December 1997, a

Tupolev Tu-154 The Tupolev Tu-154 (; NATO reporting name: "Careless") is a three-engined, medium-range, narrow-body airliner designed in the mid-1960s and manufactured by Tupolev. A workhorse of Soviet and (subsequently) Russian airlines for several decades, ...

from Tajikistan Airlines Flight 3183 crashed on approach to SHJ. Some 13 km from Sharjah the plane ran into terrain and 85 of the 86 occupants died. One of the seven crew members survived the disaster. *On 10 February 2004,

Kish Air Flight 7170 Kish Air Flight 7170 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Kish Island in Iran to Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, operated by Iranian airline Kish Air. On February 10, 2004, the aircraft serving the route, a Fokker 50, lost control ...

, operated by a

Fokker 50 The Fokker 50 is a turboprop-powered airliner manufactured and supported by Dutch aircraft manufacturer Fokker. It was designed as an improved version of the successful Fokker F27 Friendship. The Fokker 60 is a stretched freighter version of t ...

crashed on approach, killing 43 of its 46 occupants, which consisted of 3 crew and 40 passengers. *On 7 November 2004, an Air Atlanta

Boeing 747 The Boeing 747 is a long-range wide-body aircraft, wide-body airliner designed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes in the United States between 1968 and 2023. After the introduction of the Boeing 707, 707 in October 1958, Pan Am ...

freighter was damaged beyond repair due to an aborted take-off with insufficient runway remaining. None of the four crew was injured. The take-off was aborted after a report of smoke from the control tower and hearing a loud bang in the cockpit.AviationSafety.net database on plan
TF-APR
retrieved 9 May 2009 *On 21 October 2009, Azza Transport Flight 2241, operated by a

Boeing 707 The Boeing 707 is an early American long-range Narrow-body aircraft, narrow-body airliner, the first jetliner developed and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Developed from the Boeing 367-80 prototype, the initial first flew on Decembe ...

–320, crashed on take-off. The flight was carrying cargo only and all six crew members were killed.

References

External links

Official website
* * * {{authority control 1977 establishments in the United Arab Emirates Airports established in 1977 Airports in the United Arab Emirates Geography of the Emirate of Sharjah Transport in the Emirate of Sharjah Buildings and structures in the Emirate of Sharjah