Departure
96%
vs 95% ▲ 1
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Ramón Villeda Morales International Airport, also known as La Mesa International Airport, is the principal gateway to San Pedro Sula in northwestern Honduras and the busiest airport in the country. It offers a single long, lit hard-surface runway with an ILS on one direction, making it a straightforward and well-equipped destination for simulator pilots flying into Central America.
Ramón Villeda Morales International Airport serves the city of San Pedro Sula in the Cortés Department of Honduras and is often referred to by its older name, La Mesa International Airport. Named after Ramón Villeda Morales, who served as president of Honduras from 1957 to 1963, it is the busiest airport in the country, handling a substantial mix of domestic and international traffic as well as military operations. For the simulator pilot it presents a single, generously long runway equipped with an ILS, set in tropical lowland terrain near the Caribbean coast, making it an interesting hub for flights linking Honduras with the wider Central American and North American route network.
The airport lies in La Lima, Cortés Department, about 11 kilometres southeast of the city centre of San Pedro Sula, in northwestern Honduras. It sits at an elevation of 85 feet above mean sea level. The field handles both public and military traffic and is served by an approach control and tower service, placing it within controlled airspace typical of a major international aerodrome.
The airport has a single physical runway, 04/22, aligned roughly northeast-southwest. Runway 04 is 8,562 feet long and runway 22 is 8,561 feet long, both with a hard surface and runway lighting. Runway 22 is additionally equipped with an ILS, giving instrument approach capability for arrivals from the southwest.
Pilots can expect the following frequencies for Ramón Villeda Morales: Approach on 119.7 MHz, Ground on 121.9 MHz, Radio on 127.1 MHz, and Tower on 118.2 MHz. Runway 22 is served by an ILS, supporting instrument approaches into the airfield.
The airport was inaugurated in February 1965 to replace an earlier airfield in the Barandillas neighbourhood of San Pedro Sula, which had only a dirt runway and a small building serving as a terminal and had become inadequate as the city grew and air services modernised. A new passenger terminal was built at a different location on the site and opened in 1997. The airport suffered damage in 1998 during Hurricane Mitch, and again in 2020 when Hurricanes Eta and Iota caused flooding that submerged parts of the airfield, delaying humanitarian relief flights into the country. Air Europa's launch of a Madrid service in April 2017 marked Honduras's first direct air link to Europe. In August 2023 a major remodelling project began, valued at around 15 million dollars, adding facilities and expanding several parts of the airport.
Ramón Villeda Morales remains the busiest airport in Honduras, handling well over a million passengers a year along with more than 20,000 international and domestic flight movements annually. It supports a broad mix of scheduled airline traffic to the United States, Central America and Europe, alongside cargo operations and a dedicated terminal for private and general aviation flights. The airport continues to serve as the principal air gateway for San Pedro Sula and connections onward to tourist destinations such as La Ceiba, Roatán and Tela.