Laoag International Airport ( ilo, Sangalubongan a Pagpatayaban ti Laoag; fil, Paliparang Pandaigdig ng Laoag; ) is the main

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 ...

serving the general area of

Laoag Laoag, officially the City of Laoag ( ilo, Siudad ti Laoag; fil, Lungsod ng Laoag), is a 1st class Cities of the Philippines#Legal classification, component city and capital of the Provinces of the Philippines, province of Ilocos Norte, Philip ...

, the capital city of the province of

Ilocos Norte Ilocos Norte, officially the Province of Ilocos Norte ( ilo, Probinsia ti Ilocos Norte; tl, Lalawigan ng Ilocos Norte), is a province of the Philippines located in the Ilocos Region. Its capital is Laoag City, located in the northwest corner of ...

in the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

. It is the only airport in Ilocos Norte and is the northernmost international airport in the Philippines. It has one 2,784-meter runway and is designated as a secondary/alternate international airport by the

Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines The Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines (CAAP, ; fil, Pangasiwaan sa Abyasyong Sibil ng Pilipinas) is the civil aviation authority of the Philippines and is responsible for implementing policies on civil aviation to assure safe, econo ...

, a body of the Department of Transportation that is responsible for the operations of not only this airport but also of all other airports in the Philippines except the major international airports.

History

Early history

The land on which the airport sits today is located near the Ilocos Norte sand dunes at the mouth of

Padsan River The Padsan River, also known as the Laoag River and the Sarrat River, is the largest river in Ilocos Norte on the island of Luzon in the Philippines. It has a total length of and a drainage basin of . It is notable because its main channel bisect ...

. During the American colonial period, a military airfield located in the northern part of Luzon became imperative. Laoag, the most populated settlement at the time was chosen as the site. It became known as Gabu Airfield.

World War II

During the initial invasion of the Japanese in the Philippines in December 1941, Gabu Airfield was captured and subsequently used it. During the Luzon campaign to retake the islands from the Japanese, Major Simeon Valdez led a raid on the airfield, burning the headquarters and setting fire to a fuel dump. Similar attacks follow in the succeeding days until its abandonment on 15 February 1945, when it was abandoned due to Commonwealth military and guerrilla raids. It was then recaptured on 27 February 1945. By April 1945 the airfield was again operational hosting fighter and transport aircraft. Colonel Arvid E. Olson, Jr. became the Base Commander and assumed all its administrative functions. The airfield became a staging area for flights and air missions against Japanese forces in Northern Luzon by April and became an important refueling point for planes en route to Okinawa and an even more important emergency and rescue base for planes returning from Formosa and China.

Contemporary history

After the war, the airfield was converted into a civilian airport. It mostly catered to domestic flights from

Manila Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is highly urbanized and, as of 2019, was the world's most densely populate ...

and international flights from nearby countries of

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

and

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

and as far as

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 ...

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

. In 2003, the airport is an epicenter of concern for authorities during the

2002–2004 SARS outbreak The 2002–2004 outbreak of SARS, caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV or SARS-CoV-1), infected over 8,000 people from 29 countries and territories, and resulted in at least 774 deaths worldwide. The outbreak wa ...

during which it continued to receive flights from

and

, two of the most affected countries. The airport became one of the stops of the Breitling

DC-3 The Douglas DC-3 is a propeller-driven airliner manufactured by Douglas Aircraft Company, which had a lasting effect on the airline industry in the 1930s to 1940s and World War II. It was developed as a larger, improved 14-bed sleeper version ...

World Tour held in 2017. The aircraft, a

Douglas DC-3 The Douglas DC-3 is a propeller-driven airliner manufactured by Douglas Aircraft Company, which had a lasting effect on the airline industry in the 1930s to 1940s and World War II. It was developed as a larger, improved 14-bed sleeper version ...

with the registration number HB-IRJ landed for refueling in April as part of a round-the-world flight to celebrate the plane's 77th birthday. The airport was also where 4

FA-50 The KAI T-50 Golden Eagle (골든이글) is a family of South Korean supersonic advanced jet trainers and light combat aircraft, developed by Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) with Lockheed Martin. The T-50 is South Korea's first indigenous su ...

light fighter aircraft were stored during the testing of Israeli radars on Paredes Air Station in Pasuquin, Ilocos Norte. There are plans to store FA-50s on the airport as a warning squadron for any disaster/threat to the northern part of the Philippines.

Structure

Runway

The airport currently has a single with of width. The runway runs at a direction of 01°/19°. It is equipped with runway lights but not an

instrument landing system In aviation, the instrument landing system (ILS) is a precision radio navigation system that provides short-range guidance to aircraft to allow them to approach a runway at night or in bad weather. In its original form, it allows an aircraft to ...

, limiting operations during severe weather. Since March 2022, the airport can accommodate

wide-body aircraft A wide-body aircraft, also known as a twin-aisle aircraft, is an airliner with a fuselage wide enough to accommodate two passenger aisles with seven or more seats abreast. The typical fuselage diameter is . In the typical wide-body economy cabin ...

such as the

Airbus A330 The Airbus A330 is a wide-body aircraft developed and produced by Airbus. Airbus conceived several derivatives of the A300, its first airliner in the mid-1970s. Then the company began development on the A330 twinjet in parallel with the A340 ...

Terminal

A single terminal building serves both passenger and cargo traffic. As an international airport, it houses immigration desks for screening of arriving international passengers. It is also equipped with a carousel baggage at the reclaim area for passengers with checked-in items. The terminal previously had a combined capacity of 140 international and domestic passengers. It has since been expanded in 2021 to accommodate 200 international and 240 domestic passengers.

Airlines and destinations

Statistics

Data from

(CAAP). An em dash (—) is used if data from CAAP is not available.

References

External links

Laoag International Airport
* * *

{{authority control Airports in the Philippines Buildings and structures in Laoag Airfields of the United States Army Air Forces in the Philippines