Departure
99%
vs 95% ▲ 4
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Puerto Princesa International Airport (RPVP/PPS) serves the Palawan capital of Puerto Princesa and is the principal gateway to the Puerto Princesa Underground River, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The field is a joint civil-military facility, sharing its runway with Antonio Bautista Air Base, and offers a single long hard-surfaced runway equipped with an ILS on one approach direction.
Puerto Princesa International Airport lies on the island of Palawan in the Mimaropa region of the Philippines, operated by the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines and also home to the Philippine Air Force's Antonio Bautista Air Base. For a visiting pilot it is notable both as the main air gateway to the Puerto Princesa Underground River, one of the New 7 Wonders of Nature, and for its layered history as a wartime airstrip, post-war regional airfield and now a modern international terminal handling widebody traffic.
The airport sits at Puerto Princesa on the west coast of Palawan province, within the Philippines' domestic and international air traffic environment. Approach control, flight service and tower services are provided for arriving and departing traffic, with the field acting as the principal aerodrome for the whole of Palawan province.
The airfield has a single physical runway, 09/27, 8,475 feet long with a hard surface and runway lighting on both directions. Runway 27 is equipped with an ILS, giving an instrument approach for arrivals from the west; runway 09 has no published instrument approach.
Pilots should expect to work Approach on 122 MHz and Tower on 118.1 MHz, with a flight service frequency of 544.75 MHz also published for the field. The airport's runway 27 end is served by an ILS for instrument arrivals.
The airfield's origins lie in the Second World War, when American prisoners of war were forced to build the runway between August 1942 and September 1944 using crushed coral, working alongside an existing grass airstrip nearer the town. In December 1944, as Allied forces advanced, occupying Japanese troops killed 150 of the American POWs who had built the strip in the Palawan massacre; only eleven men escaped, and news of their ordeal influenced General Douglas MacArthur's decision to accelerate the liberation of the Philippines. Japanese Army Air Force units, including the 71st Sentai Squadron, flew from the strip in late 1944 and early 1945. Following the liberation of Palawan in early 1945, US Army Air Forces units, including the XIII Fighter Command, 42d Bombardment Group and 347th Fighter Group, were based here, and US Army and Navy engineers rebuilt the airfield with Marston Mat and concrete surfacing, completing it as a military airbase by March 1945. Civil air services began in 1947, with Philippine Airlines flying a weekly Manila-Puerto Princesa route via San Jose, Mindoro using DC-3 aircraft. The airport later saw its first direct Manila service with the Vickers Viscount in the early 1960s, its first jet service with the BAC 1-11 by late 1970, and its first widebody service with the Airbus A300 in the late 1990s, all operated by Philippine Airlines.
A major redevelopment saw a new passenger and cargo terminal, apron, taxiways and navigation systems built under an $82.9 million contract awarded in 2014; the new terminal opened for commercial operations on 4 May 2017, with the old terminal on the opposite side of the runway closed to passenger traffic from that year. The airport has handled international services to destinations including Kota Kinabalu, Taipei and Hong Kong, and has accommodated widebody charter traffic up to a Boeing 777-200ER. International flights were suspended in March 2020 due to pandemic restrictions, and as of mid-2025 plans were announced to resume international operations by the end of that year.