Princess Juliana International Airport, St. Maarten
Be sure to wave at the beachgoers as you land here: The St. Maarten airport is located just beyond this beautiful Caribbean Island’s Maho Beach, and you’ll skim right over their heads before you touch down. After you get off the plane, you might want to choose a different beach for your own sunbathing — unless you packed earplugs.
Kansai International Airport, Japan
What do you do when you don’t have enough land to build an airport? Create some of your own. Japan’s Kansai International Airport rests on an artificial island in Osaka Bay, which passengers reach by car, rail or ferry. The airport island is so big — 2.5 miles long and 1.6 miles wide — that it reportedly can be seen from space.
Gisborne Airport, New Zealand
Gisborne Airport, on New Zealand’s North Island, may be the only airport in the world where planes occasionally have to stop and wait for trains to pass. The regional airport’s runway intersects a railroad line, which serves freight lines and tourism-centered trains.
Barra Airport, Scotland
The island of Barra in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides is the only place in the world that uses a beach as a runway for regularly scheduled flights. If you’re planning to fly in or out of this airport, you’d better hope for low tide — otherwise the beach, and therefore the runway, will be underwater.
Hong Kong International Airport
Care to hit the links before you fly? A nine-hole golf course is just steps away from Hong Kong International Airport’s Terminal 2, complete with floodlights for nighttime golfing. Presumably the roar of jet engines (or the ear protection you might want to use) makes it difficult to hear “Fore!”
Courchevel International Airport, France
Nestled high in the French Alps, the resort town of Courchevel ranks among the world’s most sophisticated ski areas and comes complete with its own airport. Landing or taking off at the airport can fray nerves, though: It’s right next to ski runs, Alpine weather conditions cause havoc, and the extremely short runway has a steep grade of 18.5 percent.
Juneau International Airport, Alaska
There’s very little flat land to be found around Juneau, the capital of Alaska. The mountains surrounding Juneau’s airport, plus the frequent bad weather, make flying here so dicey that Alaska Airlines pioneered new flight technology to make it viable on a modern scale. Oh, and did we mention that just about the only way to reach Juneau is by air?
Gibraltar Airport
In tiny Gibraltar, space is at a premium — enough so that the airport’s runway intersects Gibraltar’s main road, which has to be closed every time a plane takes off or lands. The airport is only a few minutes away from the center of town, and gates keep cars back when the runway is occupied.
Telluride Regional Airport, Colorado
At an elevation of more than 9,000 feet, Telluride Regional Airport is the highest commercial airport on the continent. It’s also surrounded by mountains and built on a cliff. Pilots have to know what they’re doing here; the airport is flanked on three sides by a 1,000-foot drop into the San Miguel River — with the Rocky Mountains just beyond.
Copalis State Airport, Washington
If you’re landing at Copalis State Airport on Washington’s Pacific coast, you could be forgiven for wondering where the airport is. In fact, it’s little more than a strip of beach, which also happens to be open to beachgoers. The state Department of Transportation advises pilots to do a flyover before landing “to check for obstructions such as exposed rocks, debris and pedestrians.”
