Departure
96%
vs 95% ▲ 1
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Chileka International Airport lies some 13 km northwest of Blantyre, Malawi's commercial capital, and has served as one of the country's two international gateways since the colonial era. Renamed Bakili Muluzi International Airport in August 2025, it offers a long hard-surfaced main runway with ILS alongside a shorter crosswind strip, making it a straightforward but historically rich destination for the visiting VFR pilot.
Chileka International Airport sits at Nyambala, near Chileka, about 13 km by road northwest of Blantyre, Malawi's second city and its financial and commercial hub. It is one of Malawi's two international airports, the other being Kamuzu International Airport at Lilongwe, and has long handled everything from early piston airliners to jet equipment. In August 2025 it was renamed Bakili Muluzi International Airport, though it remains widely known by its original name and ICAO code FWCL.
The airfield is located northwest of Blantyre in the Southern Region of Malawi, at an elevation of 2,510 feet. As an international airport with scheduled airline traffic, it is served by approach and tower radio services; pilots planning a visit should expect to operate within controlled or advisory airspace associated with a facility of this size, though detailed airspace classification is not covered in the available material.
Chileka has two physical runways. The main runway, 10/28, is 7,616 feet long with a hard surface, lit, and equipped with an ILS on runway 10. The secondary runway, 15/33, is 4,466 feet long, also hard-surfaced, and unlit. During a 2019 closure of the main runway for resurfacing, smaller aircraft continued to use the 15/33 strip while larger types were diverted via Lilongwe; both runways have been in normal use since 1 January 2020.
Pilots should expect to work Chileka Approach on 124.9 MHz and Chileka Tower on 118.1 MHz. Runway 10 is equipped with an ILS, providing an instrument approach to the main runway.
The site's first aviation infrastructure dated to around 1934, when a handful of tin huts and a dirt landing strip were built to support the Wenela service, which flew Malawian labourers to work in South African mines. Before this, flights into the territory had arrived by flying boat on Lake Malawi at Cape Maclear. Around 1950 the British Colonial Service, working with a Salisbury-based construction firm, built a full-service airport at Chileka, complete with a terminal building, lounge, restaurant, viewing balcony, control tower, fire station, hangars, staff housing and its own power and water supply. Central African Airways was the first operator, flying routes across the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland with aircraft including the Douglas C-47 Dakota, Vickers Viking, de Havilland Dove and de Havilland Beaver. Later strengthening and lengthening of the runway allowed the airport to accept its first jet, the de Havilland Comet, and subsequently the Vickers VC10. A VVIP lounge was added by the Mandala Building & Construction Co. for the 1999 SADC conference held in Blantyre. In August 2025 President Lazarus Chakwera renamed the airport Bakili Muluzi International Airport.
Chileka continues to operate as an international airport serving Blantyre, with scheduled services historically including Airlink to Johannesburg, Ethiopian Airlines to Addis Ababa, and Malawi Airlines to Dar es Salaam, Johannesburg and Lilongwe. The main runway underwent resurfacing works between April 2019 and December 2019, with full dual-runway operations resuming from 1 January 2020.
