Perpignan–Rivesaltes Airport () , also known as Llabanère Airport, as well as Aéroport de Perpignan – Sud de France, is a small

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 ...

near

Perpignan Perpignan (, , ; ; ) is the prefectures in France, prefecture of the Pyrénées-Orientales departments of France, department in Southern France, in the heart of the plain of Roussillon, at the foot of the Pyrenees a few kilometres from the Me ...

and Rivesaltes, both '' communes'' of the

Pyrénées-Orientales Pyrénées-Orientales (; ; ; ), also known as Northern Catalonia, is a departments of France, department of the Regions of France, region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Southern France, adjacent to the northern Spain, Spanish ...

Department in the Occitanie region of south France.

Facilities

The airport is 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 two

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 ...

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, ...

s: 15/33 is and 13/31 is .

Airlines and destinations

The following airlines operate regular scheduled and charter flights at Perpignan–Rivesaltes Airport:

Statistics

Incidents and accidents

*On 27 November 2008, Flight 888T, an

Airbus A320 The Airbus A320 family is a series of narrow-body airliners developed and produced by Airbus. The A320 was launched in March 1984, Maiden flight, first flew on 22 February 1987, and was introduced in April 1988 by Air France. The first membe ...

(owned by

Air New Zealand Air New Zealand Limited () is the flag carrier of New Zealand. Based in Auckland, the airline operates scheduled passenger flights to 20 domestic and 28 international destinations in 18 countries, primarily within the Pacific Rim. The airline h ...

) operating for XL Airways Germany, crashed whilst on a test flight from Perpignan–Rivesaltes Airport. The aircraft stalled and crashed into the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea ( ) is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern Eur ...

, killing all seven on board. The aircraft was due to be returned to its original owner. *On 25 July 2019, after rehearsing for a show, one of the France Air Force (Patrouille de France) planes crashed while landing. The pilot was able to escape. Some damage was caused to the fence on the northern side of the airport.

Presidential airplanes

The airport serves as a maintenance facility for several presidential airplanes, including 5A-ONE, an

Airbus A340 The Airbus A340 is a long-haul, long-range, wide-body passenger airliner that was developed and produced by Airbus. In the mid-1970s, Airbus conceived several derivatives of the Airbus A300, A300, its first airliner, and developed the A340 qu ...

that flew Libya's Moammar Gadhafi, as well as

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

s of

Benin Benin, officially the Republic of Benin, is a country in West Africa. It was formerly known as Dahomey. It is bordered by Togo to the west, Nigeria to the east, Burkina Faso to the north-west, and Niger to the north-east. The majority of its po ...

and

Mauritania Mauritania, officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a sovereign country in Maghreb, Northwest Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Western Sahara to Mauritania–Western Sahara border, the north and northwest, ...

and an Airbus A340 that flies French President

Emmanuel Macron Emmanuel Jean-Michel Frédéric Macron (; born 21 December 1977) is a French politician who has served as President of France and Co-Prince of Andorra since 2017. He was Ministry of Economy and Finance (France), Minister of Economics, Industr ...

References

External links

Aéroport de Perpignan-Rivesaltes

Aéroport de Perpignan-Rivesaltes
(Union des Aéroports Français) {{DEFAULTSORT:Perpignan-Rivesaltes Airport Airports in Occitania (administrative region)

Airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial Aviation, air transport. They usually consist of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surf ...

Airports established in 1910