Ramon Airport () , named after

Ilan Ilan may refer to: Organization *ILAN, Israeli umbrella organization for the treatment of disabled children Given name *Ilan (name), a Hebrew/Israeli name *Ilan Bakhar, a retired Israeli footballer *Ilan Araújo Dall'Igna, a Brazilian footballer ...

and Assaf Ramon and unofficially also known as Eilat-Ramon 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 the

Timna Valley The Timna Valley (תִּמְנָע, ) is located in southern Israel in the southwestern Arava/ Arabah, approximately north of the Gulf of Aqaba and the city of Eilat. The area is rich in copper ore and has been mined since the 5th millenniu ...

in southern

Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...

. Ramon Airport is the second busiest in Israel (after

Ben Gurion Airport Ben Gurion International Airport , commonly known by the Hebrew language, Hebrew-language acronym (), is the main international airport of Israel. Situated on outskirts north of the city of Lod and directly south of the city of Or Yehuda, i ...

) and has replaced the former Eilat Airport and Ovda Airport for civilian traffic. It also serves as the primary diversion airport in Israel. The airport is located north of

Eilat Eilat ( , ; ; ) is Israel's southernmost city, with a population of , a busy port of Eilat, port and popular resort at the northern tip of the Red Sea, on what is known in Israel as the Gulf of Eilat and in Jordan as the Gulf of Aqaba. The c ...

, next to Be'er Ora. Unlike the previous airport in Eilat, it has ample ramp space and a longer runway, which allows large aircraft to land and park. The airport was originally due to open in April 2017, but the opening was pushed back and the airport opened on January 21, 2019. The Irish low-cost carrier

Ryanair Ryanair is an Irish Low-cost carrier#Ultra low-cost carrier, ultra low-cost airline group headquartered in Swords, County Dublin, Ireland. The parent company, Ryanair Holdings plc, includes subsidiaries Ryanair , Malta Air, Buzz (Ryanair), Buzz ...

inaugurated the first international flight service with a Boeing 737–800 from Poznan,

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

, on March 4, 2019.

History

Background

Eilat Airport was established in 1949, when most of what would later be Eilat was empty. As the city developed, much of it was built around the airport. In the 1994 Peace Agreement between Israel and Jordan it was decided that operations would be transferred from Eilat Airport to Aqaba Airport in Jordan. The original plan was to rename Aqaba Airport as Aqaba–Eilat Peace International Airport. The agreement was never carried out, and an agreement between the two countries in March 1997, stipulated that domestic flights would continue to use Eilat Airport, whilst no further action to move international flights took place. Nonetheless, the construction of Ramon Airport angered Jordan, as this was seen by the Jordanian side as reneging on the promise of a joint airport made in the 1990s. Removing the Eilat Airport from the city center was considered necessary for further development of Eilat, as it would allow, among other things, the construction of additional hotels close to the shoreline. It would also reduce

noise pollution Noise pollution, or sound pollution, is the propagation of noise or sound with potential harmful effects on humans and animals. The source of outdoor noise worldwide is mainly caused by machines, transport and propagation systems.Senate Publi ...

. The project is part of a larger plan to develop the city, which includes mega-projects such as moving the

Port of Eilat The Port of Eilat () is the only Israeli port on the Red Sea, located at the northern tip of the Gulf of Aqaba. This strategic location has given it outsized importance despite being remote from the country's main population centers, and access ...

to a location near the Jordanian border (for which removing the original airport is necessary), the Railway to Eilat, and upgrading the Arava Road. The airport is named in memory of the first Israeli astronaut

Ilan Ramon Ilan Ramon (; , born Ilan Wolfferman (); June 20, 1954 – February 1, 2003) was an Israeli fighter pilot and later the first Israeli astronaut. He served as a Space Shuttle payload specialist on STS-107, the fatal mission of '' Columbia ...

, who perished in the Space Shuttle ''Columbia'' disaster, and his son Assaf Ramon who died six years later when his F-16 fighter jet crashed in a training accident.

Planning and construction

The South District Planning and Construction Committee gave its approval for the project in 2003, and advanced planning was approved by the Israeli government in July 2010. Construction was authorized on July 24, 2011, before advanced planning had been completed. The project's projected cost was

₪ The shekel sign ⟨₪⟩ is a currency sign used for the shekel, the currency of Israel. Israeli new shekel (1986–present) The Israeli new shekel (, ), also known by the acronym NIS ( ), was announced officially on 22 September 1985, when t ...

1.95 billion and it was funded partly by real estate revenue from selling the Eilat Airport's land. The planning budget, approved on May 6, 2010, was ₪56 million. There was a plan to make the airport a build-operate-transfer (BOT) project, but the

Israel Airports Authority The Israel Airports Authority (IAA, , ''Reshut Sdot HaTe'ufa BeYisra'el''; ) was founded in 1977 as a Government-owned corporation, public corporation mandated by the Israel Airports Authority Law. The authority is responsible for the management ...

(IAA) objected, and the government authorized it to plan and oversee the project. Despite this, it was estimated that if the IAA took on the funding completely on its own, it would go bankrupt and default on its debts. Danya Cebus was selected to build the passenger terminal. The terminal was planned to feature a

duty-free shop A duty-free shop or store is a retail outlet whose goods are exempt from the payment of certain local or national taxes and duties, on the requirement that the goods will be sold to travelers who will take them out of the country, who will ...

, a feature which was not present in Eilat Airport as Eilat Airport virtually only saw

domestic flight A domestic flight is a form of commercial flight within civil aviation where the departure and the arrival take place in the same country. Airports serving domestic flights only are known as domestic airports. Domestic flights are generally c ...

s. Mer Group was selected to provide command and control for the airport, including

CCTV Closed-circuit television (CCTV), also known as video surveillance, is the use of closed-circuit television cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signa ...

and perimeter protection. In May 2013, the cornerstone was laid in a ceremony attended by government officials and members of the Ramon family. Construction began two weeks later. The first test flight and landing in the airport took place on September 5, 2017. In January 2019, Jordan objected to Israel's opening of the airport, arguing that operation of the airport threatens the kingdom's airspace. Ovda Airport which was built as a military airbase and is still used for that purpose had become the main airport for

international flight An international flight is a form of commercial flight within civil aviation where the Takeoff, departure and the arrival take place in different Country, countries. Regular international passenger air service began in August 1919 with a flight ...

s to Southern Israel in the 2010s, as the facilities at Eilat Airport did not allow for the operation of larger and heavier planes. After Eilat Ramon Airport opened, Ovda was closed to civilian traffic.

Facilities

The airport is located north of

. Aside from Highway 90, it may also someday be reachable from the center of the country and Eilat via a proposed high-speed rail line and a

light rail Light rail (or light rail transit, abbreviated to LRT) is a form of passenger urban rail transit that uses rolling stock derived from tram technology National Conference of the Transportation Research Board while also having some features from ...

line that will connect it to the city. A bus terminal and a

park and ride A park and ride, also known as incentive parking or a commuter lot, is a parking lot with public transport connections that allows commuters and other people heading to city centres to leave their vehicles and transfer to a bus, Rail transport, r ...

facility was built next to the airport at a cost

400 million. The bus terminal will replace the Eilat Central Bus Station. When the airport opened in 2019, the new bus station was not completed, and shuttle services are available for passengers to connect from the airport to the city of Eilat. All in all, the airport will be able to handle 2 million passengers a year. The airport features a runway and has eight remote-parking stands for large aircraft and nine for

turboprop A turboprop is a Gas turbine, gas turbine engine that drives an aircraft Propeller (aeronautics), propeller. A turboprop consists of an intake, reduction drive, reduction gearbox, gas compressor, compressor, combustor, turbine, and a propellin ...

airplanes. The land area of the airport covers , and the main terminal building is . It has the world's tallest anti-missile fence tall and long. The runway is unusually long for an airport aimed to handle only two million passengers per year, which is in part due to the easily available real estate in the desert surrounding the site and also allows it to serve as a diversion airport for all types of aircraft originally scheduled to fly into Ben Gurion Airport. This avoids the numerous issues that would occur if a flight originally scheduled to fly into TLV were re-routed outside of Israel.

Airlines and destinations

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

References

External links

Official websiteMemorial web site for Ilan Ramon – The First Israeli AstronautRenders
at the Ministry of Transportation and Road Safety website
Plans
at the

Israel Land Administration The Israel Land Administration (ILA; ; ) was an Israeli government authority responsible for managing land in Israel which is in the public domain. It manages 93% of the land in the country. As a result of reforms enacted by the 2009 government, ...

website
Show Ramon Airport construction site in Openstreetmap
{{authority control Airports in Israel Airports established in 2019 Eilat 2019 establishments in Israel