Airport type Military/Public Elevation AMSL 7,661 ft / 2,335 m 9,842 3,000 Address Hday St, Asmara, Eritrea Elevation 2,335 m | Serves Asmara, Eritrea 07/25 9,842 3,000 Asphalt Code ASM Phone +291 1 181 241 | |
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Similar Asmara Palace Hotel, Alla Scala Hotel, Nyala Hotel, Sunshine | ||
Asmara International Airport, formerly known as Yohannes IV International Airport (IATA: ASM, ICAO: HHAS), is the international airport of Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, and also the country's largest airport.
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History
The airport was created by the Italian colonial authorities in 1922, the first such facility to be opened in Italian Eritrea. It served as the main military airport in the territory. In the mid-1930s, the airport (called Aeroporto Civile di Asmara) began offering civilian and commercial flights.
On 7 July 1935, an agreement was signed with Brtitish "Imperial Airways" to connect Asmara to Khartoum. A regular Kassala-Khartoum-Asmara-Massawa 770 km commercial route was subsequently started with a Caproni 133 of the Italian Ala Littoria.
During World War II, the airport was nearly destroyed by the British. It was later renovated in the 1950s, and reopened to offer flights to Addis Ababa and other cities in Ethiopia. With Eritrea's independence in the 1990s, the airport became an international portal to the new nation.
In April 2003, after improvements to the airport's runways, Eritrean Airlines started regular services between Asmara and Frankfurt, Milan, Nairobi and Rome. In 2004, it served 136,526 passengers (+11.8% vs. 2003).
Facilities
The airport has capacity restrictions due to its smallish terminal, shortish (for hot'n'high) runway and 1.5-mile (2300m.) altitude. Consequently, some large jet aircraft (like an A380, MD-11 or 747) cannot fly to the airport. Unsuitable aircraft would instead need to use the Massawa International Airport on the Eritrean coast. Lufthansa, however, operated Airbus A340 aircraft on a FRA-JED-ASM service as recently as 2012.
The airport is also an Eritrean Air Force base.