From beaches to golf courses: The world’s most unusual airport runways

At Bora Bora airport you'll land on a thin motu (island) in a lagoon and take a boat from baggage claim. (dpa/imageBROKER/picture alliance/Sipa USA via CNN Newsource)

When it comes to travel, wherever you are in the world, some things never change. McDonald’s is always McDonald’s. A hotel lobby is always a hotel lobby. An inflight safety demonstration is always a safety demonstration, and an airport runway is an airport runway: a long, clean-lined strip of asphalt free of all external interference; a sterile environment that could be anywhere on the planet.

Or maybe not. Because when it comes to airport runways, once the safety side is taken care of, in a few parts of the world, things get a little inventive. Maybe you’ll land on a manmade island in the middle of the sea. Maybe you’ll wave at golfers on the 18-hole course between the two runways. Or maybe you’ll hit the beach faster than expected — by stepping off the airplane onto the sand.

From runways you can drive across to weird and wonderful airport locations, here are 12 examples of out-there runways.

Barra Airport, Scotland (BRR)

If nothing comes between you and your beach break, then Barra, in Scotland’s Outer Hebrides, is your kind of airport. This is the only place in the world where the runway is on the beach itself.

Just one flight route operates here: Loganair’s 140-mile connection with Glasgow, using 19-seater de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter aircraft. Pilots heading to Barra — an island just eight miles long — must line up and touch down on Traigh Mhòr, a wide bay in the north of the island (if Barra is shaped like a turtle, Traigh Mhòr is its neck), landing straight onto the sand. Flights must be timed with the tides to allow as much space to land and take off as possible.

Passengers walk across the beach to the terminal on the other side of the dunes, then get a last bit of sand underfoot as they board the aircraft for the flight back to the mainland. With these conditions, it’s little wonder that flights are canceled with a fair amount of regularity — so you may want to build in extra time before planning onward connections.

But even a delayed return is worth it for avgeeks. On this tiny plane, passengers experience the flight in close proximity to the pilots — when CNN took a spin on the flight in 2019, they could even see the pilot’s GPS instruments from their seat.

Hong Kong International Airport (HKG)

For the busiest cargo airport in the world, you need space. Luckily, Hong Kong created an entire island for its airport which, when it opened, had the world’s largest passenger terminal, too. Built to replace its predecessor (a single runway in crowded Kowloon, which was notorious for its violent turns on take-off and landing), HKG sits over the original islet of Chek Lap Kok, which was quadrupled in size with reclaimed land to house the two-runway airport. U.S. president Bill Clinton was among the first foreigners to touch down after the airport opened in 1998.

Located next to Lantau Island, the airport has views for days — the sides of the terminals are largely glass, built to shatter (and therefore preserve the building) during potential typhoons. Even getting there is a treat — the 1.4-mile Tsing Ma bridge, which connects HKG to Ma Wan island, heading towards the city, debuted as the longest road-and-rail suspension bridge in the world.

Don Mueang International Airport, Thailand (DMK)

Are you an avgeek with a mean handicap? Then it’s time to tee off in Bangkok, where Don Mueang International Airport has an 18-hole golf course between its two runways. If you’re nervous from a safety point of view, don’t be — players at the Kantarat course must go through airport-style security before they hit the grass. Oh, you meant safety on the course? Just beware of those flying balls, because there are no barriers between the course and the runways. Players are, at least, shown a red light when a plane is coming in to land so don’t get too distracted by the game.

Although Suvarnabhumi (BKK) is Bangkok’s main airport these days — it opened in 2006 —Don Mueang, which started out as a Royal Thai Air Force base in 1914, remains Bangkok’s budget airline hub, with brands including Thai Air Asia and Thai Lion Air using it as their base. Although you’re more likely to see narrowbodies these days, you may just get lucky — in 2022, an Emirates A380 made an emergency landing here. Imagine the views from the course that day.

Sumburgh Airport, Scotland (LSI)

Planning a trip to Jarlshof, the extraordinarily well-preserved Bronze Age settlement towards the southern tip of Shetland? You may need to build in some extra time. The ancient and Viking-era ruins, called one of the U.K.’s greatest archeological sites, sit just beyond one of the runways of Sumburgh, Shetland’s main airport — and reaching them means driving, cycling or walking across the runway itself.

There’s only one road heading due south from the capital, Lerwick; and while it ducks around most of the airport’s perimeter, skirting the two runways, the road cuts directly across the western end of one of them. A staff member occupies a roadside hut, and before take-offs and landings, comes out to lower a barrier across the road. Once the plane is where it needs to be, up come the barriers and waiting drivers get a friendly thumbs up.

Amata Kabua International Airport, Marshall Islands (MAJ)

Imagine flying into Majuro, the capital of the Marshall Islands in Micronesia. You’re descending down, down, and further down towards the Pacific, no land in sight. Then you’re suddenly above a pencil-thin atoll — can you really be about to land here? Yes you are, with cars racing past the runway no less, matching you for speed.

Majuro’s Amata Kabua International Airport gives a whole new meaning to the phrase “water landing”. Its single runway, just shy of 8,000ft, is a slim strip of asphalt over the sandbar that’s barely any wider than the atoll itself — and the island is so remote that when the runway was resurfaced, materials had to be transported from the Philippines, Hong Kong and Korea, according to the constructors. “Lagoon Road” — the 30-mile road that runs from top to toe on Majuro — skims alongside the runway.Don’t think about pulling over, though — there’s only sand and sea on one side, and that runway the other.

Genoa Cristoforo Colombo Airport, Italy (GOA)

There’s famously little space in Genoa — the Italian city from where Christopher Columbus set out for the Americas is racked up along near-sheer cliffs, with public elevators and even funicular railways between districts. Little wonder that — having crammed buildings into every usable inch of space since the medieval period — there was no more room for an airport once the 20th century came along.

Enter the artificial peninsula west of the city center on which Genova Cristoforo Colombo international airport now balances. The airport opened in 1962 after an eight-year construction period with a terminal building added in 1986. Today, GOA is less busy than it was — airlines including Volotea and British Airways pulled out following the pandemic — but board a flight to the Ligurian capital and you’ll have an incredible landing where it seems the plane is going to touch down on water — until the runway appears under the wheels at the very last moment (extra adrenaline kick for those who end up doing a goaround procedure, as we once experienced on a flight into Genoa).

If you can’t find a flight into GOA that works for you, you could try flying to Nice Côte d’Azur Airport (NCE), just across the border in France, which is also partially built on reclaimed land, though it’s not as dramatic as landing in Genoa.

Gibraltar International Airport (GIB)

Gibraltar’s crossable runway is so famous that even John Lennon and Yoko Ono posed for a photo here after their wedding in the British Overseas Territory. If you thought crossing Sumburgh’s asphalt was good, this is on a whole other level — just as long as you’re not in a car.

Gibraltar’s runway, which handled 3,628 flights in 2024, also doubles as a road into town, so you can cross it by scooter, bike, or on foot once you land, waving off the airplane that just deposited you there. (Previously, cars could cross too, but since 2023 they’ve been rerouted via a tunnel.) Police man the crossing, barring the way when the red light goes on to denote a plane taking off or landing. Crossing the runway is now one of the essential things to do on a visit to Gibraltar — so much so that the airport even has tips for how to do it on its website.

However fun it is, remember that safety is paramount. As the airport advises, don’t stay too long taking photos on the runway, don’t drop any litter, keep track of children and pets (yes, astonishingly, they’re allowed too) and check your pockets lest anything fall out in the breeze — in the words of the airport, “litter entering aircraft engines can cause serious damage.” The best photo spot, as John and Yoko knew, is by the Air Traffic Control tower.

Bora Bora, French Polynesia (BOB)

File this as a tropical, paradisiacal sibling to Barra. Bora Bora Airport was constructed during World War II on a motu, or island in a lagoon, meaning that to get anywhere else in Bora Bora you need to take a boat from the baggage claim (there’s one dock and three pontoons). Air Tahiti and Air Moana both serve “BOB,” typically using ATR42 and ATR72 turboprops to skim over the azure waters and land on this miraculous runway in the middle of the South Pacific.

The runway essentially takes up the entire length of the motu, before tapering out into the perfect white sand. Despite the super-remote location, there are still amenities — according to the airport website there are even a couple of shops in the terminal (built in typical Polynesian style) where you can pick up some last-minute souvenirs.

Kansai International Airport (KIX), Japan

Move over Hong Kong; Kansai, the main airport for Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto, is not only on a manmade island (in fact, it straddles two conjoined manmade islands), but it sits just shy of three miles off the coast, in water around 60 feet deep. Opened in 1994 after seven years of construction, the airport-island is one of the world’s most spectacular runways, and has an equally snazzy terminal designed by starchitect Renzo Piano. It was one of 10 buildings around the world to be awarded the Civil Engineering Monument of the Millennium Award by the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2001.

The second runway was added in 2007. It hasn’t been an easy ride — sitting on soft clay, the airport initially sank at a frightening rate of nearly 20 inches in 1994, but then things stabilized, and the annual sink rate was down to under three inches by 2008. No wonder that in such a dramatic location there’s the self-styled “Sky Deck” to take in the unique views. Open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily, it even has a garden and a children’s play area so avgeeks don’t have to give up their hobby once they become parents. (Kansai is great for extras — there’s even an airport museum which has videos and models of the construction.)

Nauru International Airport (INU)

What are the odds that there is a higher proportion of avgeeks in the Republic of Nauru, in Micronesia, than elsewhere? The third-smallest country in the world at just over eight square miles (only Vatican City and Monaco are tinier), it’s the proud home of its national carrier, Nauru Airlines, and an airport that has the ocean on one side and the capital on the other.

Slicing across the southwest coast of the island, Nauru International Airport’s runway has residential streets backed up against it, while the coastal road that loops the island does an extra celebratory ring around the airport itself. While the road doesn’t go on the runway itself, it crosses each end, meaning traffic is stopped for landings and take-offs — giving drivers prime views.

Chubu Centrair International Airport (NGO), Japan

Not content with one stellar airport on a manmade island, Japan got another in 2005: Chubu is based near the city of Nagoya, an industrial hub that’s home to major car manufacturers, who needed easy and close cargo shipping. The five-year construction involved using ‘sand compaction piles’ driven into the seabed by specialist ships to stabilize the surface.

A second terminal opened in 2019, and the airport still has big plans — there are two more runways to come, with one already in the works. Want to spend more time there? Try to score a business trip — the Aichi Sky Expo conference center shares the island with the airport. Otherwise, there’s an “aerial theme park,” Field of Dreams, home to a Boeing 787 — beside a kids’ playground.

Velana International Airport (VIA), Maldives

You already know it — landing in the Maldives is likely to be spectacular — but touching down at Velana confirms your wildest dreams. Sprawling over Hulhulé, an island close to the capital Malé (the two are linked by a 1.3-mile bridge), it’s essentially just a single runway, surrounded by the turquoise sea. Even more excitingly, you might be landing alongside seaplanes — the airport opened a new seaplane terminal in 2022, and has no fewer than four water runways alongside the asphalt.

Opened in 1966, it was built by Maldivans (including volunteers) over an earlier steel-plated landing strip, and got a new 11,150ft runway in 2022, strong enough to accommodate an Airbus A380. In 2024 it tripled its cargo capacity, and 2025 saw the opening of a swish new passenger terminal. Early departure? No worries, there’s even a place to stay, the Hulhule Island Hotel.

By Julia Buckley, CNN