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Wajir Airport lies in Kenya's arid North Eastern region, serving Wajir town close to the Somali border. Built as a Kenya Air Force military airbase in the late 1970s, it now handles a mix of military, cargo and limited scheduled civilian traffic on its single long runway.
Wajir Airport is a public airfield serving Wajir town in Wajir County, north-eastern Kenya, operated by the Kenya Airports Authority. It began life as a military airbase for the Kenya Air Force and today combines a continuing military presence with cargo, charter and limited scheduled passenger flights. For a simulator pilot, it offers an unusual combination of a substantial single runway set in remote, sparsely populated semi-arid terrain, with a working military and security footprint around the field.
Wajir Airport sits in Wajir town, in Kenya's North Eastern region, an area historically inhabited by Borana and Somali communities and lying close to the Jubbada Hoose region of southern Somalia. By air it is roughly 495 kilometres northeast of Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Kenya's principal civilian gateway. The airport retains a military character, with an army camp on the western side of the terminal building and a Kenya Air Force compound about half a kilometre south of the perimeter fence.
The airport has one physical runway, 15/33, measuring 9,202 feet in length with a hard surface. There is no ILS available.
Wajir is served by an AFIS frequency of 118.2 MHz.
Wajir Airport was built between 1977 and 1978 by the Israeli construction company HZ as a military airbase for the Kenya Air Force. In November 2006 the Kenyan government suspended direct scheduled flights to and from Somalia because of security concerns linked to the Islamic Courts Union; following pressure from Somali traders, the Kenya Civil Aviation Authority lifted the suspension in August 2007, requiring all such flights to stop at Wajir for customs, immigration and security screening before continuing to their final destination. A new terminal was subsequently built, and on 7 September 2007 the airport was officially commissioned to handle both passenger and military flights. In 2012, US Navy Seabees constructed a new tarmac runway able to take heavy aircraft.
The airport employs around 100 workers, mainly police officers, and its single entrance is guarded for security. It handles about seven flights a day, mostly cargo, alongside some charter and military movements; scheduled passenger services have included twice-weekly civil flights as of 2012, with carriers such as Fly-SAX and Jambojet operating routes to Nairobi's Jomo Kenyatta and Wilson airports. Flights arriving from Somalia have been required to stop over at Wajir for screening as of August 2021.
