Departure
97%
vs 95% ▲ 2
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Maastricht Aachen Airport (EHBK) is a major cargo hub and regional airport at Beek in Dutch Limburg, sitting a few miles northeast of Maastricht and northwest of Aachen. It began life as a hastily built World War II advanced landing ground before growing into today's single long, ILS-equipped runway airport, home also to Eurocontrol's Maastricht Upper Area Control Centre.
Maastricht Aachen Airport, known locally as vliegveld Beek, is a controlled aerodrome at Beek in the Dutch province of Limburg, serving Maastricht, Aachen in Germany, and the wider Euregio Meuse-Rhine. It combines a modest passenger operation with a substantial cargo business and hosts general aviation and flight training alongside Eurocontrol's Maastricht Upper Area Control Centre, making it a distinctive and historically rich destination for a visiting VFR pilot.
The airfield lies about 5 nautical miles northeast of Maastricht and some 15 nautical miles northwest of Aachen, Germany, near the villages of Beek, Geulle and Ulestraten where the original wartime strip was built. It is a controlled aerodrome with its own approach and tower service, and it also hosts the Maastricht Upper Area Control Centre, the Eurocontrol facility responsible for upper airspace over the region, underlining the airport's significance within the surrounding controlled airspace structure.
The airfield has a single physical runway, 03/21, a hard-surfaced strip of roughly 8,200 feet lit for night operations and equipped with ILS on both directions, sitting at a field elevation of 367 feet.
Inbound traffic can expect BEEK Approach on 120.205 MHz, with an ATIS broadcast on 124.58 MHz. Dutch Military Flight Information Service is available on 132.35 MHz. On the ground, Beek Clearance Delivery and Ground operate on 121.83 MHz, with BEEK Tower on 119.48 MHz. The runway's ILS provides an instrument approach for both 03 and 21.
Plans for an airport in southern Limburg date back to 1919, but municipal disputes over location and funding, and then the outbreak of the Second World War, repeatedly delayed construction. Following the Allied invasion of Normandy, the USAAF's IX Engineer Command built a temporary advanced landing ground, designated Y-44, between the villages of Beek, Geulle and Ulestraten in late 1944 and early 1945, using rubble from the bombed town of Geleen to level damaged orchards. The 5,565-foot pierced-steel-plank runway became operational on 22 March 1945, and the field briefly hosted the 31st Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron flying F-6 Mustangs, along with photographic reconnaissance and medium bombardment units, though the rapid collapse of Nazi Germany meant no direct combat sorties were flown from it. Authority passed to the Dutch government on 1 August 1945, and the decision was taken to keep the airfield open rather than reopen the pre-war debate over its location. The first civilian flights began on 26 September 1945 under the Regeeringsvliegdienst using de Havilland Dragon Rapides, with KLM taking over the service in 1946 using Douglas DC-3 Dakotas until it ceased in 1949. The first semi-permanent terminal opened in 1947, the runway was paved in 1949, and a second paved runway followed in 1950. A 1951 agreement with the Dutch Air Force allowed rapid expansion, runway 04/22 was lengthened to 1,850 metres, and permanent runway lighting was installed in 1960. The late 1950s and 1960s brought significant commercial growth, with operators including KLM, Airnautical, Skytours, Euravia, Tradair and Transair using the field as an intermediate stop on routes from London and Manchester to destinations such as Switzerland, Austria, Italy and Yugoslavia. The locally based Limburg Airways, which had a contract to distribute the European edition of the International Herald Tribune, was taken over by Martin's Air Charter, later Martinair, in 1962. A successful Dutch tourist board campaign promoting nearby Valkenburg aan de Geul to British holidaymakers brought charter services from Invicta Airlines, Britannia and Channel Airways, while newly formed NLM CityHopper began domestic services to Amsterdam Schiphol. The airport's name changed to Maastricht-Aachen Airport in October 1994 following the involvement of Belgian and German civic shareholders.
Maastricht Aachen Airport remains the second-largest cargo hub in the Netherlands and continues to combine scheduled and charter passenger flights with substantial freight operations. General aviation traffic is handled by the on-field Jet Center. Flight training resumed at the airport in the summer of 2007 when the Stella Aviation Academy moved into facilities previously used by the NLS.
