Cassidy International Airport is an airport located north of

Banana A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa''. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distinguis ...

, a settlement on

Kiritimati Kiritimati (also known as Christmas Island) is a Pacific Ocean atoll in the northern Line Islands. It is part of the Republic of Kiribati. The name is derived from the English word "Christmas" written in Gilbertese according to its phonolog ...

(also known as Christmas Island) in

Kiribati Kiribati (), officially the Republic of Kiribati ( gil, ibaberikiKiribati),Kiribati
''The Wor ...

. Until 2018, it was the only airport in the Kiribati part of the

Line Islands The Line Islands, Teraina Islands or Equatorial Islands (in Gilbertese, ''Aono Raina'') are a chain of 11 atolls (with partly or fully enclosed lagoons) and coral islands (with a surrounding reef) in the central Pacific Ocean, south of the Hawa ...

with an

IATA The International Air Transport Association (IATA ) is a trade association of the world's airlines founded in 1945. IATA has been described as a cartel since, in addition to setting technical standards for airlines, IATA also organized tariff ...

or ICAO code. The airport is served by

Fiji Airways Fiji Airways (trading as and formerly known as Air Pacific) is the flag carrier airline of Fiji and operates international services from its hubs in Fiji to 13 countries and 26 cities including, Australia, New Zealand, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, K ...

from

Nadi Nadi (pronounced ) is the third-largest conurbation in Fiji. It is located on the western side of the main island of Viti Levu, and had a population of 42,284 at the most recent census, in 2007. A 2012 estimate showed that the population had ...

, Fiji and

Honolulu Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island ...

, United States, but not during the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

and closure of international borders. Since neither

Air Kiribati Air Kiribati (pronounced Air Kiri'bas) is the flag carrier of the Republic of Kiribati and operates scheduled passenger services to 20 atolls spread over an area of 3.5m sq km. It is headquartered at Bonriki International Airport on the island o ...

nor

Coral Sun Airways Coral Sun Airways is the younger of two Kiribati airlines (after flag carrier Air Kiribati), established in January 2009. The airline operated domestic service to all 17 airports in the Gilbert Islands, but stopped any regular service and offers on ...

owns aircraft capable of flying between Kiritimati and the

Gilbert Islands The Gilbert Islands ( gil, Tungaru;Reilly Ridgell. ''Pacific Nations and Territories: The Islands of Micronesia, Melanesia, and Polynesia.'' 3rd. Ed. Honolulu: Bess Press, 1995. p. 95. formerly Kingsmill or King's-Mill IslandsVery often, this n ...

, where all other operational airports in Kiribati are located, there are no domestic flights from there to or from Kiritimati, but only domestic flights between the three main

. However, Coral Sun Airways declares on its website that the company is considering purchasing a larger aircraft, capable of flying to the Line Islands and the

Phoenix Islands The Phoenix Islands, or Rawaki, are a group of eight atolls and two submerged coral reefs that lie east of the Gilbert Islands and west of the Line Islands in the central Pacific Ocean, north of Samoa. They are part of the Kiribati, Republic ...

History

During

World War II 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 ...

, the

United States Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

Air Transport Command Air Transport Command (ATC) was a United States Air Force unit that was created during World War II as the strategic airlift component of the United States Army Air Forces. It had two main missions, the first being the delivery of supplies and ...

used the airport as a refuelling stop on its Pacific transport route from Hawaii to

Canton Island Canton Island (also known as Kanton or Abariringa), previously known as Mary Island, Mary Balcout's Island or Swallow Island, is the largest, northernmost, and , the sole inhabited island of the Phoenix Islands, in the Republic of Kiribati. It i ...

for flights to Australia and New Zealand as well as a staging point for attacks on the

, then partially occupied by Japan. The airport was expanded considerably during the war, and the World War II runway configuration can still be seen as abandoned runways and aircraft parking areas in aerial photography. By 1981,

Air Tungaru Air Tungaru was the first airline of Kiribati. As the predecessor of current Air Kiribati, it was Kiribati's national flag carrier. Air Tungaru's main base was Bonriki International Airport, the international airport at Kiribati's capital, South ...

, the former national airline of

Kiribati Kiribati (), officially the Republic of Kiribati ( gil, ibaberikiKiribati),Kiribati
''The Wor ...

, was operating nonstop

Boeing 727-100 The Boeing 727 is an American Narrow-body aircraft, narrow-body airliner that was developed and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. After the heavy Boeing 707, 707 quad-jet was introduced in 1958, Boeing addressed the demand for shorter f ...

jet service to both

and

Tarawa Tarawa is an atoll and the capital of the Republic of Kiribati,Kiribati
''

Papeete, Tahiti Papeete ( Tahitian: ''Papeete'', pronounced ) is the capital city of French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of the French Republic in the Pacific Ocean. The commune of Papeete is located on the island of Tahiti, in the administrative subdivi ...

with this latter service being operated in conjunction with

Union de Transports Aériens Union de Transports Aériens (abbreviated as UTA and sometimes known as UTA French Airlines), was a French airline that was formed in 1963 as a result of a merger between Union Aéromaritime de Transport (UAT) and Transports Aériens Interconti ...

(UTA), a French airline. In 1994,

Air Nauru Nauru Air Corporation, trading as Nauru Airlines (formerly trading as Our Airline and Air Nauru), is the flag carrier airline of the Republic of Nauru. It operates scheduled international services to other Pacific islands and Australia. Its mai ...

was flying

Boeing 737-200 The Boeing 737 is a narrow-body aircraft produced by Boeing at its Boeing Renton Factory, Renton Factory in Washington (state), Washington. Developed to supplement the Boeing 727 on short and thin routes, the twinjet retains the Boeing 707, 7 ...

jet service to Honolulu and Tarawa with the latter flight operating same plane direct service to

Nauru Nauru ( or ; na, Naoero), officially the Republic of Nauru ( na, Repubrikin Naoero) and formerly known as Pleasant Island, is an island country and microstate in Oceania, in the Central Pacific. Its nearest neighbour is Banaba Island in Ki ...

. During the early 2000s,

Aloha Airlines Aloha Airlines was an American airline headquartered in Honolulu, Hawaii, operating from a hub at Honolulu International Airport (now Daniel K. Inouye International Airport). Operations began on July 26, 1946, and ceased operations on March 31 ...

operated nonstop Boeing 737 service to Honolulu.

Name

Cassidy International Airport was originally named after a United States Army World War II pilot, Wilbur Layton Casady, whose plane crashed near the island on 23 March 1942. The name remained until sometime in the 1980s and was referenced in many books and a ''

Sports Illustrated ''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twic ...

'' article on fishing in Kiribati. It is unclear when the spelling changed, but it now uses the spelling 'Cassidy' International Airport.

Facilities

The airport is at an elevation of 5 ft (1.5m) above

mean sea level There are several kinds of mean in mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. ...

. It has one

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt concrete, as ...

designated 08/26 with an

asphalt Asphalt, also known as bitumen (, ), is a sticky, black, highly viscous liquid or semi-solid form of petroleum. It may be found in natural deposits or may be a refined product, and is classed as a pitch. Before the 20th century, the term a ...

surface measuring .

Airlines and destinations

Air Pacific service

On 29 August 2008,

Air Pacific Fiji Airways (trading as and formerly known as Air Pacific) is the flag carrier airline of Fiji and operates international services from its hubs in Fiji to 13 countries and 26 cities including, Australia, New Zealand, Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, K ...

(now Fiji Airways) announced they would suspend flights to and from the airport as of 2 September 2008. The decision was made due to the deteriorating surface of the runway which had been deemed unsafe after an inspection by Air Pacific personnel and specialist runway engineers.Air Pacific Suspends Flights To Kirimati (Christmas) Island
".

, 29 August 2008. Retrieved on 19 October 2008. Service resumed on 25 May 2010. During the period Air Pacific was not offering its services to Fiji and the United States, a USA company, Te Mauri Travel, offered "interim" charter flights to Kiritimati.

References

External links

* * {{authority control Airports in Kiribati Kiritimati Airfields of the United States Army Air Forces in the Pacific Ocean theatre of World War II Airfields of the United States Army Air Forces Air Transport Command in the Pacific Ocean Theater