Departure
97%
vs 95% ▲ 2
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Memanbetsu Airport serves the Okhotsk region of eastern Hokkaido from the town of Ozora, offering a single long ILS-equipped runway that handles jet services to Tokyo, Sapporo and seasonal points further south. For a visiting VFR pilot it is a useful gateway to Shiretoko National Park and the Abashiri drift-ice coast, combining scheduled airline traffic with straightforward instrument approaches.
Memanbetsu Airport lies in the Memanbetsu district of Ozora, a town in eastern Hokkaido, and is operated by Hokkaido Airports. It is the principal air gateway to the Okhotsk Subprefecture, sitting between the city of Abashiri to the northeast and the town of Kitami to the west, and is the closest airport to Shiretoko National Park. For a simulator pilot it offers a long, well-lit ILS runway in a scenic, sparsely built-up part of Hokkaido, with regular airline movements to balance against the quieter surrounding countryside.
The airfield is located at Ozora, Hokkaido, close to the Sea of Okhotsk coast, roughly 20 km southwest of Abashiri and 30 km northeast of Kitami. It is a medium, publicly owned airport with an operating control tower, reflecting its role as a scheduled-service hub for the Okhotsk region.
Memanbetsu has a single physical runway, 18/36, 8,184 feet long with a hard surface. Both directions are lit and served by ILS, giving the field a strong instrument-approach capability for a regional Hokkaido airport.
The tower callsign operates on 118.85 MHz. The runway is equipped with ILS on both 18 and 36, supporting precision approaches in the often marginal Hokkaido weather.
Pilots can use Abashiri city and its coastline to the northeast, and Kitami to the west, as broad orientation points when routing towards the field. Shiretoko National Park, a well-known feature to the east, provides a further distant landmark for flights approaching from that direction.
The present airfield opened in April 1985, replacing an earlier Memanbetsu Airport situated nearby. Its runway was extended to the current length in 2000. Until 2006 the airport lay within the Town of Memanbetsu, which then merged with the Village of Higashimokoto to form the Town of Ozora. In 2011 the Hokkaido government announced that landing fees would be waived for international charter flights using the airport, part of an effort to attract more overseas tourism to the region.
Memanbetsu remains a busy regional airport, handling scheduled services from carriers including Air Do and Japan Airlines to Tokyo-Haneda, ANA Wings and J-Air to Sapporo-Chitose, Hokkaido Air System to Sapporo-Okadama, and seasonal Peach flights from Osaka-Kansai. It is operated by Hokkaido Airports as part of that company's network of Hokkaido aerodromes.