Departure
97%
vs 95% ▲ 2
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Palma de Mallorca Airport (LEPA/PMI), often referred to by its old name of Son Sant Joan, is Mallorca's principal international gateway and one of Spain's busiest airports, lying close to the coast east of Palma city. For a simulator pilot it offers a demanding mix of dense mixed civil and military traffic, long ILS-equipped runways and a genuinely historic Mediterranean setting.
Palma de Mallorca Airport, known historically as Son Sant Joan Airport, is a large international airport on the island of Mallorca in Spain's Balearic Islands. It is operated by AENA and shares its runway system with the Son Sant Joan Air Force Base of the Spanish Air and Space Force. The field is a focus base for several major carriers and, for the simulator pilot, represents a busy hub environment with full ILS approaches, parallel long runways and a rich civil-military history stretching back to the early days of Spanish aviation.
The airport lies about eight kilometres east of the city of Palma, immediately adjacent to the village of Can Pastilla on Mallorca's southern coast. It sits within controlled airspace commensurate with a major international hub and shares its aerodrome with the co-located Son Sant Joan military air base.
Palma de Mallorca has two parallel hard-surfaced, lit runways aligned 06/24. The northern runway, 06L/24R, is 10,915 feet long on the 06L threshold and 10,481 feet on the 24R threshold, and is equipped with ILS at both ends. The southern runway, 06R/24L, measures 8,488 feet from the 06R threshold and 9,825 feet from the 24L threshold, with ILS available on the 24L approach. Field elevation is 13 feet.
Radio services include Approach on 118.95 MHz, ATIS on 119.25 MHz, a Clearance Delivery/Ground frequency at 121.705 MHz, a further control position (CLD) on 123.88 MHz, Operations on 130.25 MHz, and Tower on 118.305 MHz. The airport is fully equipped with ILS approaches, as noted above, supporting instrument arrivals in poor weather.
Interest in air links to the Balearic Islands began in the early twentieth century, with the postal seaplane route from Barcelona to Palma established in 1921 by Aeromarítima Mallorquina. Trials before this had been carried out on two flat fields, Son Sant Joan and Son Bonet, both later developed as aerodromes. A flying school opened at Son Sant Joan in 1934 under Aero-Taxi de Mallorca, and in May 1935 the airline LAPE (Líneas Aéreas Postales Españolas), a forerunner of Iberia, was founded; the following August it inaugurated the first regular Madrid–Palma route via Valencia using Son Sant Joan. Son Bonet meanwhile became the island's main civilian airport as Son Sant Joan increasingly took on a military role. In 1954 the runway at Son Sant Joan was enlarged and paved to allow operation of F-86 Sabre fighters, a project that required diversion of the Palma–Llucmajor road, and the first paved taxiways and aprons were built. Growing traffic and the impossibility of enlarging Son Bonet led to the 1958 National Airport Plan, which proposed a large new civilian airport beside the Son Sant Joan air base; the plan was approved in 1959 and commercial traffic transferred from Son Bonet to Son Sant Joan, along with a new terminal, civilian apron, VHF communications centre and a VOR installation. The airport formally opened to domestic and international traffic on 7 July 1960, and expansion works began the following summer. Passenger growth through the 1980s and 1990s led to construction of the current central terminal building, designed by the Majorcan architect Pere Nicolau Bover, which opened in 1997 after passenger numbers had already passed 15 million during construction in 1995. Traffic declined after the September 11 attacks before recovering through the 2000s, peaking at 23.2 million passengers in 2007. In November 2015 Air Berlin announced the closure of its hub operations at the airport after more than a decade, with its domestic routes to the mainland and to Faro in Portugal ceasing in spring 2016. In June 2024 torrential rain flooded the airport, causing significant delays.
Palma de Mallorca remains a major international airport operated by AENA and continues to share its runways with the Son Sant Joan Air Force Base of the Spanish Air and Space Force. It serves as a focus airport for a number of scheduled and charter carriers operating across mainland Spain and wider Europe.
