Departure
93%
vs 95% ▼ 2
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Presque Isle International Airport is a city-owned public airport a mile northwest of Presque Isle in Aroostook County, Maine, serving the wide farming and forestry region of northern Maine and northwestern New Brunswick. Its long primary runway and instrument approach reflect a history as a major World War II air transport base, and today it remains an active general aviation and Essential Air Service field. Simulator pilots will find a straightforward two-runway layout set among the potato fields and forests of Aroostook County.
Presque Isle International Airport (KPQI/PQI) lies a mile northwest of the city of Presque Isle in Aroostook County, in Maine's far north, close to the New Brunswick border. Owned by the City of Presque Isle, it combines scheduled airline service under the federal Essential Air Service programme with general aviation and air taxi operations, and is of interest to sim pilots both for its long, ILS-equipped runway and its wartime pedigree as a transatlantic air transport hub.
The airport sits a mile northwest of downtown Presque Isle, adjacent to the Skyway Industrial Park, which occupies part of the former Presque Isle Air Force Base site. The region is otherwise rural, dominated by farmland and forest in Aroostook County, with the field acting as the principal aviation gateway to northern Maine and adjoining parts of New Brunswick, Canada.
The airport has two physical runways. Runway 01/19 is 7,436 feet long with a hard surface, lit, and served by an ILS on runway 01. Runway 10/28 is 5,991 feet long, also hard-surfaced and lit. Field elevation is 482 feet.
An instrument landing system serves runway 01, giving pilots a precision approach into the airport's longer runway.
During the Second World War the federal government took over the airfield, developing it into Presque Isle Army Airfield, a vital staging base for aircraft being flown to and from Great Britain. Lane Construction of Hampden was among the contractors who upgraded the field for military use, and the city became a busy wartime air transport centre almost overnight. Actor Clark Gable was briefly stationed at Presque Isle before being posted to England, and author Ernest K. Gann drew on his own experiences flying from the base with the Air Transport Command in his book Fate Is the Hunter. The United States Air Force closed Presque Isle Air Force Base in 1961, after which the site was redeveloped: part became a business park, home to Northern Maine Community College, while the airfield itself became Northern Maine Regional Airport, later renamed Presque Isle International Airport. The adjoining Skyway Industrial Park, owned by the city and administered by the Presque Isle Industrial Council, grew up on former base land and today hosts more than sixty companies. Airline service at the airport declined sharply after the 1978 Airline Deregulation Act, as carriers withdrew from smaller markets, leaving the field reliant on Essential Air Service subsidy to maintain scheduled flights for a catchment of roughly 200,000 residents.
Presque Isle International Airport continues to operate as a mixed-use field, with roughly 7,400 aircraft movements a year, split between general aviation (about a third of operations), air taxi work (around half), and a small proportion of airline and military flights. In 2022 some 18 aircraft were based there, mostly single-engine types alongside one multi-engine aircraft and one jet. Scheduled passenger service is provided under the Essential Air Service programme, currently flown by JetBlue using Airbus A220-300 aircraft on the airport's only scheduled route, to Boston Logan International Airport; the airport was JetBlue's first Essential Air Service destination when service began in 2024. Passenger flights have previously been operated by United Express (via GoJet Airlines) and by Wiggins Airways using Cessna 208 Caravans and Beechcraft C99s for air taxi and cargo work, alongside FedEx and United Parcel Service traffic supporting the adjacent Skyway Industrial Park.