Departure
97%
vs 95% ▲ 2
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Pamplona Airport (LEPP) is a small AENA-operated aerodrome close to the Navarran capital, best known among sim pilots for its long single runway and ILS approach set among rolling farmland south of the city. It sits midway between the villages of Noáin and Esquiroz and has served scheduled traffic since the early 1970s, though today's movements are modest and dominated by a handful of domestic routes.
Pamplona Airport is a public airport owned and operated by AENA, serving the city of Pamplona in Navarra, northern Spain. It lies a short distance south of the city, between the settlements of Noáin and Esquiroz, and although it now handles relatively light scheduled traffic, its long, well-equipped runway and ILS approach make it a straightforward and interesting destination for a VFR or instrument cross-country in the simulator.
The airport sits at 1,483 feet elevation at coordinates 42.77 N, 1.6464 W, roughly 6 km from the centre of Pamplona and situated between the towns of Noáin and Esquiroz. It is a controlled aerodrome with its own approach, tower and ground frequencies, reflecting its status as a regional airport handling scheduled airline services.
Pamplona has a single physical runway, 15/33, of hard surface construction and lit for night operations. Runway 15 is the longer of the two published lengths at 7,786 feet and is equipped with an ILS approach; runway 33 is listed at 6,230 feet. The runway's considerable length and hard surface make it suitable for a wide range of aircraft types likely to be flown in the simulator.
Pilots should expect to work Approach on 118.2 MHz, Tower also on 118.2 MHz, and Ground on 121.7 MHz. An ILS is available for runway 15, supporting instrument approaches into the field.
The airport lies between the villages of Noáin and Esquiroz, a few kilometres south of Pamplona city centre, and these settlements make useful visual references when routing towards the field from the surrounding Navarran countryside.
Construction of the airport was approved in 1968, with a 500 metre runway opened the following year; the first aircraft to use it was a light aircraft from the Real Aeroclub de Navarra on 3 October 1969, with the official opening following on 4 October 1969. The runway was progressively lengthened over the following years, first to 1,000 metres and then to 1,750 metres by the early 1970s, before being widened again to around 2,200 metres during the 1970s. Scheduled passenger services began on 6 July 1972 with an Aviaco Fokker F27-100 flight between Madrid and Pamplona, and the airport's first passenger terminal opened the following year on 6 July 1973. A new terminal and control tower replaced the originals on 24 November 2010, with the older buildings retained alongside for other uses. Between 2017 and early 2020 Lufthansa operated a daily service to Frankfurt, which was suspended in March 2020 owing to the COVID-19 outbreak and not resumed.
Pamplona remains an AENA-managed airport with scheduled services currently operated by Iberia to Madrid, with seasonal flights to Ibiza, and by Binter Canarias to Gran Canaria and Tenerife-North. Traffic levels are modest, with the airport recording just over five thousand movements and some 220,000 passengers in 2024, making it a relatively quiet but fully facilitated field for simulator pilots to fly into, complete with an ILS-equipped runway and full approach, tower and ground radio coverage.