Departure
96%
vs 95% ▲ 1
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Atka Airport is a remote, state-owned public-use airfield on Atka Island in the Aleutians, serving the small community of Atka under the Essential Air Service programme. For a simulator pilot it offers a genuinely isolated, weather-exposed Aleutian strip with a single lit runway and no instrument approach aids.
Atka Airport sits on Atka Island in the Aleutian chain of Alaska, a few miles from the city of Atka itself. It is a state-owned, public-use general aviation facility rather than a major commercial hub, and scheduled passenger service to the field is subsidised under the federal Essential Air Service programme, historically operated by carriers such as Grant Aviation. For sim pilots it is a classic remote Aleutian outpost: a single hard runway on a small, isolated island, offering a stark contrast to the traffic and infrastructure of larger Alaskan fields.
Atka Airport is located on Atka Island, two nautical miles north of the central business district of the city of Atka, in the U.S. state of Alaska. It lies within Alaska's generally uncontrolled and sparsely surveyed airspace typical of the outer Aleutian Islands, well removed from any major controlled airspace or neighbouring aerodromes.
The airfield has one physical runway, 16/34, oriented north-northwest to south-southeast. Runway 16 is 4,611 feet long and runway 34 is 4,606 feet long; both are hard-surfaced and lit.
No communications frequencies are published for Atka Airport, and there are no navaids or instrument approach procedures associated with the field, reflecting its status as a small, remote general aviation and Essential Air Service airfield.
No published joining or circuit procedures, circuit heights, or noise abatement restrictions are available for this airfield.
No specific visual reference points are published for the airfield; pilots should expect to identify it visually as the single runway strip located about two nautical miles north of the town of Atka on Atka Island.
Atka Airport was formerly identified under the designator 40A before adopting its current FAA location identifier AKA. Passenger traffic has historically been modest: FAA records show 321 enplanements in 2008, 406 in 2009, and 322 in 2010, and the field has been classified within the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems as a general aviation facility, since commercial-service status requires at least 2,500 annual enplanements. Essential Air Service subsidies have supported scheduled flights to Atka over the years, with carriers including Peninsula Airways, Alaska Airlines (for the associated Adak route), and later Grant Aviation holding the contract at various points.
Atka Airport continues to support subsidised scheduled air service to the community of Atka, with Grant Aviation having operated flights connecting the field to Unalaska/Dutch Harbor. Aircraft operations remain light, historically averaging around 45 movements a month, split between air taxi and scheduled commercial flights, and the airfield has no based aircraft. No fuel, communications, or navigational facilities are indicated, and pilots planning a visit should treat it as an unattended, remote airstrip.