Departure
96%
vs 95% ▲ 1
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
L.F. Wade International Airport is Bermuda's sole airport, sited on St David's Island at the eastern end of the archipelago, some six nautical miles northeast of the capital, Hamilton. Built during the Second World War as a joint RAF/USAAF airfield and later operated for decades by the US Air Force and US Navy, it today handles the territory's international airline traffic as well as a growing volume of corporate jet movements. For a simulator pilot, its long single hard runway, ILS approach and mid-Atlantic isolation make it a distinctive and useful destination.
L.F. Wade International Airport, known by the ICAO code TXKF and IATA code BDA, is the only airport serving Bermuda, a British overseas territory in the North Atlantic. It lies on St David's Island in the parish of St George's, operated by Bermuda Skyport Corporation Limited on behalf of the Government of Bermuda. The field's single long runway, its wartime military origins and its remote Atlantic setting make it a notable and characterful stop for any virtual pilot flying transatlantic or regional routes to the island.
The airport sits on St David's Island at the east end of Bermuda, south of Ferry Reach, and is about six nautical miles (eleven kilometres) northeast of Hamilton, the island's capital. It is the only airport on Bermuda and therefore the sole focus of controlled airspace over the territory. Radio services are provided by New York Approach and New York Center, reflecting Bermuda's position within airspace administered from the US mainland despite its status as a British overseas territory.
The airport has a single physical runway, 12/30, measuring 9,693 feet and surfaced in hard asphalt. Both thresholds are lit, and runway 30 is equipped with an ILS approach, making it the primary instrument runway for arrivals.
Radio services at Bermuda are provided under the callsign associated with New York Approach and New York Center for approach and en-route control. Published frequencies are Approach (New York App) 119.1 MHz, Clearance Delivery 124.5 MHz, Center (New York Center) 128.5 MHz, CTAF 122.8 MHz, Ground 124.5 MHz, and Tower 118.1 MHz. Runway 30 is served by an ILS, providing an instrument approach into the airport.
The airfield was built between 1941 and 1943 by levelling Long Bird Island and several smaller islands and filling in the intervening waterways, creating a landmass contiguous with St David's Island. It opened as Kindley Field, a joint US Army Air Forces and Royal Air Force base; the RAF withdrew its forces at the end of the Second World War, though the local RAF commander stayed on loan to the Bermuda Government and converted the RAF facilities into a Civil Air Terminal. When the pre-war flying-boat base on Darrell's Island closed in 1948, Bermuda's air routes transferred to land planes using this airfield. The United States Air Force then operated it as Kindley Air Force Base until 1970, when it passed to the United States Navy, which ran it as Naval Air Station Bermuda until 1995, when the Navy terminated its 99-year lease and transferred the field to the Bermuda Government. Because the Navy had not been required to meet international civil aviation standards despite civil airline use of the base, the Bermuda Government had to make rapid and costly changes on assuming control, including new airfield lighting, fencing, and the levelling of obstructions near the runway. The airfield originally had three runways; only the longest remains in use today, one former runway now serves partly as a taxiway and is blocked at one end by munitions bunkers on a peninsula known locally as The Finger, while the other last operated as a runway in 1978 and is now a taxiway linking the aprons to the active runway. The airport was renamed L.F. Wade International Airport on 16 April 2007 in honour of L. Frederick Wade, a former leader of the governing Progressive Labour Party, a decision criticised at the time by the opposition United Bermuda Party. In March 2017 the Bermuda Government signed a 30-year concession agreement with the Canadian Commercial Corporation for Bermuda Skyport Corporation Limited to manage and operate the airport, and a new passenger terminal was completed in December 2020.
L.F. Wade International remains Bermuda's only airport, with one passenger terminal and one cargo terminal supporting scheduled services from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and the Azores. It offers US Customs and Immigration preclearance, allowing US-bound flights to be treated as domestic on arrival. Only jet fuel is available, and because of Bermuda's considerable distance from the nearest landmass, general aviation use is effectively limited to jets and long-range turboprops. A former NATO hangar built in the early 1990s is now used to support the airport's growing corporate jet traffic.