Airport type Public Serves Kiritimati Elevation AMSL 5 ft / 2 m Address Kiribati Elevation 2 m | Operator Government Location Banana 08/26 2,103 Code CXI | |
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Cassidy International Airport (IATA: CXI, ICAO: PLCH) is an airport located north of Banana, a settlement on Kiritimati (also known as Christmas Island) in Kiribati. It is the only airport in the Kiribati part of the Line Islands with an IATA and/or ICAO code.
Contents
The airport is served by Fiji Airways from Nadi, Fiji and Honolulu, United States. Since neither Air Kiribati nor Coral Sun Airways owns aircraft capable of flying between Kiritimati and the Gilbert Islands, where all other operational airports in Kiribati are located, there are no domestic flights to or from Kiritimati. However, Coral Sun Airways declares on its website the company is considering to purchase one larger aircraft, capable of flying to the Line Islands and the Phoenix Islands.
History
During World War II, the United States Army Air Forces Air Transport Command used the airport as a refuelling stop on its Pacific transport route from Hawaii to Kanton Island for flights to Australia and New Zealand as well as a staging point for attacks on the Gilbert Islands, then 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.
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 March 23, 1942. The name remained until sometime in the 1980s and was referenced in many books and a Sports Illustrated article on fishing in Kiribati. It is unclear when the spelling changed, but it currently retains the spelling 'Cassidy' International Airport.
Facilities
The airport is at an elevation of 5 ft (1.5m) above mean sea level. It has one runway designated 08/26 with an asphalt surface measuring 2,103 by 30 metres (6,900 ft × 98 ft).
Air Pacific service
On 29 August 2008, Air Pacific announced they would suspend flights operating the airport from 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. 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.