Departure
97%
vs 95% ▲ 2
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (VGHS) is Bangladesh's principal international gateway, located at Kurmitola in the northern part of Dhaka. It offers a single long ILS-equipped runway capable of handling the full range of airline and long-haul traffic, and doubles as a Bangladesh Air Force base.
Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport is the largest and busiest airport in Bangladesh, serving as the primary hub for the country's flag carrier Biman Bangladesh Airlines as well as US-Bangla Airlines, Novoair, Air Astra and others. It is operated by the Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh (CAAB) and also hosts a Bangladesh Air Force base, BAF Base Bir Uttom A. K. Khandker. For a simulator pilot, it presents a substantial single-runway international operation with a long ILS-served strip, heavy jet traffic, and a compact but busy terminal complex just north of a major South Asian capital.
The airport lies at Kurmitola in the northern part of Dhaka, roughly 17 km from the city centre, with Uttara and Gazipur to its north and the main built-up area of Dhaka to its south. It sits within Dhaka terminal airspace and is served by its own approach and tower control.
The airport has a single physical runway, 14/32, a hard-surfaced strip of roughly 10,425 to 10,426 feet in length. Both directions are lit and equipped with ILS, giving instrument approach capability to either end.
Dhaka Approach is available on 121.3 MHz, with ATIS broadcast on 127.4 MHz. Ground movements are handled by Dhaka Ground on 121.8 MHz, and Dhaka Tower operates on 118.3 MHz. A radio (RDO) facility is also listed on 294.7 MHz. The runway is equipped with ILS on both 14 and 32.
The site began life in 1941 as a wartime landing strip built by the British at Kurmitola, several kilometres north of the older Tejgaon Airport, intended as a reserve strip to support operations towards the Kohima and Burma fronts. After the Partition of India in 1947, Tejgaon became the main civilian airport for what was then East Pakistan, while the Kurmitola strip fell into disuse and was mistakenly bombed by the Indian Air Force during the 1965 Indo-Pakistani war in the belief it was Tejgaon. In 1966 the Pakistani government began building a new airport on the present site, with French technical assistance, but construction was halted and the strip damaged during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War. After independence, the Bangladeshi government resumed the project with Aéroports de Paris as consultants, and the airport opened in 1980 as Dacca International Airport, formally inaugurated by President Ziaur Rahman. It was later renamed Zia International Airport and subsequently Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, in honour of the revered Sufi saint Shah Jalal.
The airport remains Bangladesh's main international gateway and the principal hub for Biman Bangladesh Airlines and several private Bangladeshi carriers, handling around 190 flights a day across its existing terminals. A third terminal has been under construction to expand capacity beyond the current annual handling limit of about 18.5 million passengers. The field continues to double as a Bangladesh Air Force base alongside its civil operations.