Haifa Airport ( he, נְמַל הַתְּעוּפָה חֵיפָה, ''Namal HaTe'ufa Haifa''; ar, مطار حيفا) , also known as U Michaeli Airport is a small

international airport An international airport is an airport with customs and border control facilities enabling passengers to travel between countries around the world. International airports are usually larger than domestic airports and they must feature longer ...

located in

Haifa, Israel Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropol ...

. It is located to the east of the city, close to Kishon Port and

Israel Shipyards Israel Shipyards is one of the largest shipbuilding and repair facilities in the eastern Mediterranean. The company also operates the first and only privately owned port in Israel. The company’s facilities are located at the Kishon Port (part ...

and mainly serves civilian flights, with some military usage. Most passenger flights utilizing the airport are domestic operations to

Eilat Eilat ( , ; he, אֵילַת ; ar, إِيلَات, Īlāt) is Israel's southernmost city, with a population of , a busy 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 ...

and

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...

. The airport is named after Uri Michaeli, one of the pioneers of Jewish aviation and one of the founders of aviation in Israel. The airport has one short runway, in length, and there are plans to extend it by .

History

Haifa Airport was established by the British Mandate in 1934 as its first international airport at the location of

RAF Station The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

Haifa which originally served the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

and the Iraqi-British oil company, APS. RAF Haifa already had passenger service by

Imperial Airways Imperial Airways was the 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. Passenger ...

Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...

(since 1931) and

Baghdad Baghdad (; ar, بَغْدَاد , ) is the capital of Iraq and the second-largest city in the Arab world after Cairo. It is located on the Tigris near the ruins of the ancient city of Babylon and the Sassanid Persian capital of Ctesiphon ...

(since 1932). In 1936 passenger services by

Misr Airwork Misr or MISR may refer to: * Misr, the romanized Arabic name for Egypt * misr, singular of Arabic ''amsar'', which were early Arabic "garrison towns" * Misr (domain name), a top-level Internet domain name * Misr, a variant of the AKM assault rifle ...

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

and

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is geo ...

were opened. In 1937, these were joined by

Palestine Airways Palestine Airways ( he, נתיבי אוויר ארץ ישראל, Netivei Avir Eretz Yisrael, lit=Land of Israel Airways, ar, شركة الطرق الجوية بفلسطين) was an airline founded by Zionist Pinhas Rutenberg in British Palestin ...

services, as well as

Ala Littoria Ala Littoria S.A. was the Italian national airline that operated during the fascist regime in the 1930s and 1940s. History ''Ala Littoria'' was formed by a merger of Società Aerea Mediterranea (SAM), Società Anonima Navigazione Aerea (SANA) ...

regular services to

Brindisi Brindisi ( , ) ; la, Brundisium; grc, Βρεντέσιον, translit=Brentésion; cms, Brunda), group=pron is a city in the region of Apulia in southern Italy, the capital of the province of Brindisi, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. Histo ...

and

Trieste Trieste ( , ; sl, Trst ; german: Triest ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital city, and largest city, of the autonomous region of Friuli Venezia Giulia, one of two autonomous regions which are not subdivided into provi ...

via

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

. In 1938 a third of flights into Mandatory Palestine landed in Haifa; but in 1940, civil flights were stopped due to the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

in which the airport served the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) and ...

's operations in the Middle East as RAF Haifa. The RAF station closed in 1948, and the airport re-opened as Haifa Airport.

RAF Haifa

RAF Haifa was a

station in Mandatory Palestine between 1918 and 1948. Operational units at RAF Haifa 1938 to 1948: *

No. 6 Squadron RAF Number 6 Squadron of the Royal Air Force operates the Eurofighter Typhoon FGR.4 at RAF Lossiemouth. It was previously equipped with the SEPECAT Jaguar, SEPECAT Jaguar GR.3 in the close air support and tactical reconnaissance roles, and was post ...

detachment (1938–1939)

Hawker Hardy The Hawker Hart is a British two-seater biplane light bomber aircraft that saw service with the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was designed during the 1920s by Sydney Camm and manufactured by Hawker Aircraft. The Hart was a prominent British aircra ...

* No. 30 Squadron RAF detachment (1940)

Bristol Blenheim The Bristol Blenheim is a British light bomber aircraft designed and built by the Bristol Aeroplane Company (Bristol) which was used extensively in the first two years of the Second World War, with examples still being used as trainers until ...

No. 80 Squadron RAF No. 80 Squadron RAF was a Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force squadron active from 1917 until 1969. It was operative during both World War I and World War II. Establishment and early service Founded on 1 August 1917 at RAF Montrose, equipped ...

(1941) Hawker Hurricane I * No. 112 Squadron RAF detachment (1941) Curtiss Tomahawk I * No. 142 Squadron RAF detachment (1918) Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2 *

No. 144 Squadron RAF No. 144 Squadron RAF was a Squadron (aviation), squadron of the British Royal Air Force. It was first formed in 1918 during the First World War, operating as a bomber squadron in the Middle East. It reformed in 1937, serving in the bomber and ant ...

detachment (1919)

de Havilland DH.9 The Airco DH.9 (from de Havilland 9) – also known after 1920 as the de Havilland DH.9 – was a British single-engined biplane bomber developed and deployed during the First World War. The DH.9 was a development of Airco's earlier successfu ...

No. 208 Squadron RAF No 208 (Reserve) Squadron was a reserve unit of the Royal Air Force, most recently based at RAF Valley, Anglesey, Wales. It operated the BAe Hawk aircraft, as a part of No. 4 Flying Training School. Due to obsolescence of its Hawk T.1 aircraft ...

detachment (1941)

Hawker Audax The Hawker Hart is a British two-seater biplane light bomber aircraft that saw service with the Royal Air Force (RAF). It was designed during the 1920s by Sydney Camm and manufactured by Hawker Aircraft. The Hart was a prominent British aircra ...

No. 213 Squadron RAF No. 213 Squadron was a squadron of the Royal Air Force. The squadron was formed on 1 April 1918 from No. 13 (Naval) Squadron of the Royal Naval Air Service.Halley 1988, p. 278. This RNAS squadron was itself formed on 15 January 1918 from the Sea ...

(1941) Hawker Hurricane I * No. 260 Squadron RAF (1941) Hawker Hurricane I * No. 261 Squadron RAF (1942) Hawker Hurricane I *

No. 450 Squadron RAAF No. 450 Squadron was a unit of the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) that operated during World War II. Established at RAAF Base Williamtown, RAAF Station Williamtown, New South Wales, in February 1941, it was the first Australian Article ...

(1941) Hawker Hurricane I *

No. 651 Squadron RAF The numero sign or numero symbol, №, (also represented as Nº, No, No. or no.), is a typographic abbreviation of the word ''number''(''s'') indicating ordinal numeration, especially in names and titles. For example, using the numero sign, t ...

(1948)

Auster AOP6 The Auster AOP.6 was a British military air observation aircraft produced by Auster Aircraft Limited to replace the numerous wartime Taylorcraft Auster aircraft then in-service. History The Auster AOP.6 (Auster Model K) was designed as a succ ...

Haifa Airport post-1948

The airport reopened for passenger traffic in 1948 with flights operated by

Cyprus Airways Cyprus Airways (Greek: Κυπριακές Αερογραμμές) is the flag carrier airline of Cyprus, based at Larnaca International Airport. It commenced operations on 1 June 2017. History Cyprus Airways resumed operations in 2016 after win ...

. This was followed ten years later by Arkia Israel Airlines flights. It wasn't until 1994, however, that the airport received international status, and at this time, it was planned that the airport would serve flights to destinations across Europe. Less than a year later, the airport was placed for sale. At this time, great interest in the site was shown by the French construction group,

Bouygues Bouygues S.A. () is a French industrial group headquartered in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, 8th arrondissement of Paris, France. Bouygues is listed on the Euronext, Euronext Paris exchange and is a blue chip (stock market), blue chip in the C ...

, as well as

British Aerospace British Aerospace plc (BAe) was a British aircraft, munitions and defence-systems manufacturer. Its head office was at Warwick House in the Farnborough Aerospace Centre in Farnborough, Hampshire. Formed in 1977, in 1999 it purchased Marconi ...

. These expected services never really took off however, and it wasn't until 1996, and the start of

Israir Israir Airlines Ltd., more commonly referred to as Israir, is an Israeli airline headquartered in Tel Aviv. It operates domestic scheduled and air taxi flights from Ben Gurion International Airport, Ramon Airport, and Haifa Airport as well as in ...

flights, that the airport grew. This growth was further increased in 1998 with Aeroel service. Royal Wings increased route offerings once again with flights from Jordan, whilst Scorpio started flights to Egypt. In 1998, a new terminal was opened at the airport to cater for all of the services needed in a modern international airport. In the past there were three takeoff and landing runways in the airport, of which only two still exist, and only one is currently in use. In 2001, talk over expanding the airport restarted when then

Finance Minister A finance minister is an executive or cabinet position in charge of one or more of government finances, economic policy and financial regulation. A finance minister's portfolio has a large variety of names around the world, such as "treasury", " ...

Silvan Shalom Zion Silvan Shalom ( he, ציון סילבן שלום, born 4 August 1958) is an Israeli politician who served as a member of the Knesset for Likud between 1992 and 2015. He held several prominent ministerial positions, including being Vice Prim ...

called for an 800 million NIS upgrade to turn the airport into one of an international standard. 2007 saw the first rise in passenger numbers and aircraft movements since 2002 with an increase of 25% in passenger numbers and a 7% increase in aircraft movements over the previous year. In general, between the peak point of its operation in 1999 and 2007 passenger number have fallen by 50%. Aircraft movements have decreased from 2002 to 2007 by 34%.

Future

The Israel Airports Authority intends to extend the runway to sometime in the 2020s. This will involve extending the runway northwards, across Julius Simon Road, which will then pass in a tunnel underneath the runway.

Airlines and destinations

Statistics

References

Citations

Bibliography

* Jefford, C.G. ''RAF Squadrons, a Comprehensive Record of the Movement and Equipment of all RAF Squadrons and their Antecedents since 1912''. Shrewsbury, Shropshire, UK: Airlife Publishing, 2001. . * Sturtivant, Ray,

ISO ISO is the most common abbreviation for the International Organization for Standardization. ISO or Iso may also refer to: Business and finance * Iso (supermarket), a chain of Danish supermarkets incorporated into the SuperBest chain in 2007 * Iso ...

and John Hamlin. ''RAF Flying Training And Support Units since 1912''. Tonbridge, Kent, UK: Air-Britain (Historians) Ltd., 2007. .

External links

* *
Haifa Airport aviation weather
{{authority control Airports in Israel

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 surface ...

Airports established in 1934 1934 establishments in Mandatory Palestine