Transform Your Flight Sim Experience
with In-Depth Tracking & Analysis
Track every flight, analyse your performance,
and master your flying skills with My FS Flights
Get 10 flights free every month!
Tracked and analysed flights over miles
Rafael Hernández International Airport (TJBQ/BQN) lies on Puerto Rico's northwest coast at Aguadilla, occupying the site of the former Ramey Air Force Base and boasting the longest runway in the Caribbean. It remains a hub for cargo and charter operators, the home of Coast Guard Air Station Borinquen and US Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Operations, and offers a simulator pilot the novelty of a vast ex-military strip built for Cold War bombers.
Rafael Hernández International Airport, also known by its IATA code BQN, sits at the western tip of Puerto Rico in the municipality of Aguadilla. Named for the Puerto Rican composer Rafael Hernández Marín, it began life as a Second World War-era Army airfield and later became a Strategic Air Command bomber base, a heritage that still shows in its enormous single runway. Today it is Puerto Rico's second-busiest airport for passenger traffic after San Juan, and it also hosts Coast Guard Air Station Borinquen and US Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Operations, giving the field a mixed civil, cargo and government flying character that makes it an interesting destination for a simulator pilot exploring the Caribbean.
The airport is located on the northwest coast of Puerto Rico, in the municipality of Aguadilla, close to the town centre and the coastal district around Punta Borinquen and Ramey. It is served by San Juan Center for en-route air traffic control, reflecting its position within the San Juan Center's airspace, and the field itself operates with an active control tower.
The airport has a single very long physical runway, 08/26, built to a width of 200 feet for Cold War-era heavy bombers. Runway 08 is listed at 11,288 feet and Runway 26 at 11,676 feet, both hard-surfaced (asphalt/concrete) and lit; there is no ILS.
Radio services include an aerodrome frequency (A/D) of 135.7 MHz, a San Juan RDO frequency of 113.5 MHz, and UNICOM/CTAF on 123 MHz. A miscellaneous frequency of 34.5 MHz is listed for Coast Guard air radio traffic. The airfield's control tower, housed in the refurbished former USAF tower, became operational again in July 2007 after decades of the field operating as an uncontrolled UNICOM aerodrome following the 1974 closure of Ramey Air Force Base.
The field lies only a few miles from downtown Aguadilla and sits close to well-known coastal landmarks that are useful for visual orientation, including Punta Borinquen and the surfing beaches along the northwest shoreline such as Crash Boat Beach and Surfer Beach. The coastline and the cliffs around Punta Borinquen provide a distinctive visual reference for pilots approaching from the sea.
The site was selected in 1939 after Major George C. Kenney surveyed 42 possible locations in Puerto Rico and identified Punta Borinquen as the best for a major air base. The US government purchased 3,796 acres of former sugar cane farmland that September for military use, and Major Karl S. Axtater took command of the new Borinquen Army Air Field. With the creation of an independent US Air Force in 1947, the base was renamed Ramey Air Force Base in 1948 and became home to a Strategic Air Command bombardment wing, initially flying B-36 Peacemaker intercontinental bombers before these were replaced by B-52 Stratofortress bombers and KC-135 Stratotanker tankers; a tenant weather reconnaissance squadron flew WB-47 Stratojet and WC-130 Hercules aircraft. The runway's great length and 200-foot width, together with 870-foot blast pads at each end and 50-foot shoulders, were built specifically to accommodate the size and weight of the B-36. Ramey Air Force Base began closing in 1971, with the process complete by 1973, after which the site was converted into a civilian airport. It subsequently saw domestic service from Prinair and Vieques Air Link, New York JFK flights with Capitol Air, and Boeing 720 service from Miami with Southeast Airlines. The airport was also used by Wrangler Aviation (later Sky Lease Cargo) to fly company cargo. In the mid-to-late 1970s the Ahrens Aircraft Corporation attempted to manufacture its AR 404 short takeoff and landing regional airliner at former USAF industrial facilities on the field, with financial incentives from the Puerto Rican government, but the project was cancelled after only two aircraft were built and a government investigation into the incentives followed. The old military control tower stood unused after the base's 1974 closure, limiting the airport to UNICOM communications, until it was refurbished in 2006 and 2007 and returned to service as an operational tower in July 2007. In February 2012 the airport was designated a free trade zone.
Rafael Hernández International remains an active mixed-use aerodrome, home to Coast Guard Air Station Borinquen and US Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Operations alongside civilian passenger and cargo traffic. The cargo side of the field includes a main cargo terminal and a dedicated FedEx terminal, and the airport serves as a hub for Ameriflight. In 2024 the field recorded 44,065 aircraft operations, 738,766 passenger movements and had 37 based aircraft.
