Departure
94%
vs 95% ▼ 1
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Ohrid St. Paul the Apostle Airport is North Macedonia's second international gateway, sited among the hills northwest of Lake Ohrid and built to bring tourist traffic into the historic town of Ohrid. It offers a single long, lit hard-surface runway with an ILS on one end, making it a straightforward destination for both airline traffic and visiting simulator pilots. The field is operated under a long-term concession by TAV Airports.
Ohrid St. Paul the Apostle Airport serves as North Macedonia's secondary international airport, complementing Skopje and providing access to the UNESCO-listed town of Ohrid and the lake of the same name. It is a modest but capable field, able to accept small to medium-sized jet aircraft, and since 2008 has been managed by the Turkish operator TAV Airports under a twenty-year concession. For a simulator pilot it offers an interesting mix of an ILS-equipped runway set against mountainous, lake-side scenery.
The airport lies in Orovnik, within Debarca Municipality, about 9 km (5.6 mi) northwest of the town of Ohrid in the southwest of North Macedonia. It sits close to Lake Ohrid, one of Europe's oldest and deepest lakes, which forms a prominent geographic feature for anyone approaching the field from the south or east.
The airport has a single physical runway, 01/19, orientated roughly north-south. It is 8,380 ft (2,550 m) long with a hard surface, and is lit. Runway 01 is equipped with an ILS, giving an instrument approach into the field from the south.
Approach and tower services both operate on 119.2 MHz. Runway 01 carries an ILS for instrument approaches; a simple approach lighting system supports the runway, having been installed as part of the 2004 runway reconstruction.
Lake Ohrid, immediately to the southeast, is the dominant visual feature in the area and a useful reference for inbound traffic, with the town of Ohrid itself lying beyond it to the south. The airport sits in the Debarca Municipality countryside northwest of the lake, near the village of Orovnik.
The airport's runway was last reconstructed in 2004, when a Category I approach lighting system was installed alongside other improvements enabling operation by a range of aircraft types. In 2008 the Macedonian government signed a twenty-year concession agreement with TAV Airports Holding, covering both Ohrid and Skopje airports, and the terminal and VIP areas at Ohrid were subsequently modernised. The airport's history includes the loss of Avioimpex Flight 110 on 20 November 1993, when a Yakovlev Yak-42D en route from Geneva to Skopje was diverted to Ohrid in poor weather and crashed nearby, killing all 116 people on board.
Ohrid St. Paul the Apostle Airport continues to operate as an international airport handling scheduled and seasonal services from carriers including Wizz Air, TUI Airways, TUI fly Netherlands, Edelweiss Air, Chair Airlines, Austrian Airlines, Air Serbia and Turkish Airlines, with destinations across Europe. The apron can accommodate up to nine aircraft and the terminal is designed to handle up to 400,000 passengers a year. Passenger and movement numbers have varied considerably year on year, reflecting the airport's seasonal tourist traffic to the Ohrid region.