Departure
94%
vs 95% ▼ 1
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Argyle International Airport (TVSA/SVD) is the principal gateway to Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, built on the island's south-eastern coast near Kingstown to replace the constrained E.T. Joshua Airport. Opened in 2017 after a lengthy and much-delayed construction programme, it now handles everything from inter-island Twin Otters to wide-body jets on its single long runway, making it an interesting stop for visiting sim pilots flying into the Eastern Caribbean.
Argyle International Airport, generally known simply as AIA, serves the island of Saint Vincent and the wider Grenadines archipelago. It is operated by Argyle International Airport Inc. on behalf of the Government of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and is the country's only airport with scheduled international services, acting as the main hub for SVG Air and Mustique Airways as well as a base for regional and long-haul carriers. For a visiting VFR or IFR pilot it offers a single very long, well-equipped runway set against the backdrop of Saint Vincent's mountainous interior, a combination that makes approaches here visually striking.
The airport lies at Argyle on the south-eastern coast of Saint Vincent, in the Parish of Saint George, about 8 kilometres from the capital Kingstown. It is the largest of the five airports serving Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, the others being the smaller J.F. Mitchell, Canouan, Mustique and Union Island airfields further south in the Grenadines chain. Terrain to the west of the field rises into low mountains, a feature clearly visible on the approach to the runway.
The airport has a single physical runway, 04/22, oriented north-east/south-west. It is 9,017 feet long, has a hard surface and is lit, giving ample length for everything from light twins to wide-body commercial jets.
Pilots can expect the following services and frequencies: Argyle Approach on 120.8 MHz, an ATIS broadcast on 132.55 MHz, Argyle Ground on 121.9 MHz, and Argyle Tower on 118.8 MHz. There is no ILS installed at the field.
Construction of Argyle International Airport broke ground on 13 August 2008, undertaken by a joint Vincentian and Cuban workforce nicknamed the "Chatoyer-Che Contingent" by Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves. The project ran well beyond its original schedule, eventually opening on 14 February 2017, when a Dynamic Airways charter became the first international aircraft to land at the new field. It replaced the much smaller E.T. Joshua Airport, which had reached the limit of its capacity and had no room for expansion, and represents the largest capital infrastructure project in the country's history, with construction costs estimated at around XCD 700 million (about USD 259 million).
Argyle International Airport is the primary base for SVG Air and Mustique Airways, which together operate an extensive network of inter-island flights throughout the Grenadines, and it also supports scheduled international services to North America, the United Kingdom and other Caribbean airports, alongside charter, cargo and general aviation traffic. The field includes cold-storage and standard freight handling facilities and is noted as one of the Caribbean's solar-powered airports. Given its status as an international commercial airport, visiting general aviation pilots should expect to require prior permission before arrival.