Departure
98%
vs 95% ▲ 3
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Mostar International Airport (LQMO) serves the city of Mostar in Bosnia and Herzegovina from the village of Ortiješ, a short distance southeast of the city. It offers a single long asphalt runway with an ILS approach, making it a straightforward destination for VFR and IFR traffic alike, and its history as a former military test airfield adds interest for the visiting simulator pilot.
Mostar International Airport lies near the city of Mostar in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the village of Ortiješ some 4 nautical miles southeast of Mostar's railway station. It is a public airport operated by Mostar Airport Ltd. and majority-owned by the City of Mostar, with a minority stake held by Zagreb Airport. For a simulator pilot the field is notable both for its single generously long runway equipped with an ILS and for its unusual past life as a Cold War-era military test airfield, complete with an underground hangar, before it opened to civil traffic.
The airport sits in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, close to the city of Mostar, in the village of Ortiješ about 4 NM (7.4 km) southeast of the city's railway station. As an international airport handling scheduled and charter jet traffic, it is served by its own approach and tower frequencies rather than being a simple uncontrolled strip.
Mostar has a single physical runway, 15/33, of 7,850 ft on a hard surface, lit for night operations. Runway 33 is equipped with an ILS, giving instrument approach guidance from the northwest, while runway 15 offers the reciprocal visual and non-precision approach from the southeast. Field elevation is 164 ft.
Pilots should expect to work Mostar Approach on 122.7 MHz and Mostar Tower on 124.2 MHz. Runway 33 is served by an ILS, providing precision approach guidance for arrivals from the northwest; no other navaids are detailed in available sources.
No specific joining or circuit procedures, circuit heights or noise abatement restrictions are detailed in available sources beyond the presence of an ILS to runway 33, which suggests standard instrument approach and departure procedures for that direction, with runway 15 used for the reciprocal sense.
No published visual reference points are given in available sources. Pilots can use the city of Mostar itself, along with the Neretva river valley in which it sits, as the principal landmark when routing towards the airport at Ortiješ, southeast of the city centre.
Mostar Airport opened for civilian air traffic in 1965, initially handling domestic flights. Before that date the site was a military airfield with a large concrete runway used by the Yugoslav aircraft manufacturer SOKO for testing and delivering military aircraft, and a military underground hangar was built there. The airport's civilian traffic grew steadily, with a record 86,000 passengers recorded in 1990. Traffic doubled in 2012, making Mostar briefly the second-busiest airport in Bosnia and Herzegovina after Sarajevo. Scheduled international services began in earnest in November 2017 when Eurowings became the first airline to schedule regular flights, to Düsseldorf and Stuttgart, followed in May 2018 by Croatia Airlines' twice-weekly Mostar-Zagreb service. The COVID-19 pandemic severely disrupted operations, with both Eurowings and Croatia Airlines withdrawing their scheduled services and all scheduled traffic lost for a period; the airport received financial assistance of 1,000,000 Bosnia and Herzegovina convertible marks from the government in March 2021 to help it recover. Civilian traffic resumed on 8 September 2021 with a Croatia Airlines charter flight from Shannon, Ireland.
Mostar Airport today primarily handles charter flights carrying Catholic pilgrims travelling to nearby Medjugorje, alongside a growing scheduled network. Current and recent operators include Air Serbia to Belgrade, Croatia Airlines to Zagreb with seasonal charters to Dublin, Eurowings to Stuttgart with seasonal service to Düsseldorf, Bulgaria Air seasonal charters to Sofia, and Sky Alps, which operates a base at the airport with seasonal flights to destinations including Bari, Bergamo, Palermo and Rome-Fiumicino. Passenger numbers have been recovering strongly since the pandemic, reaching over 72,000 in 2025.