Departure
92%
vs 95% ▼ 4
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Sittwe Airport lies on the Rakhine coast of western Myanmar, a single-runway field with a history stretching back to its wartime origins as RAF Akyab. It now serves as the domestic gateway to Sittwe and Rakhine State, handling regular flights from Yangon and other Burmese cities.
Sittwe Airport serves the town of Sittwe (formerly Akyab) in Rakhine State on Myanmar's western coast. It is a modest single-runway domestic airport handling scheduled services to and from Yangon and other Burmese destinations, and its wartime origins as an RAF station give it a certain historical interest for visiting pilots. For a simulator pilot, it offers a straightforward coastal approach into a compact, low-traffic aerodrome with a long single runway.
Sittwe Airport sits at the town of Sittwe on the Rakhine coast of western Myanmar. No specific airspace classification, FIR boundary detail, or nearby controlled airspace is given in the available sources beyond its general coastal location.
The airport has a single physical runway, 11/29, measuring 6,027 feet, with a hard surface and runway lighting. There is no ILS.
Sittwe Airport is served by APP on 119.7 MHz and TWR on 118.7 MHz. Historical accounts note that the field was equipped with HF, VHF and NDB facilities along with night landing aids including airfield lighting and approach lights, though no instrument approach procedure is documented in the available sources.
Sittwe Airport began life as RAF Akyab, a Royal Air Force station and military airfield during the Second World War, when Sittwe was known under its colonial-era name of Akyab. It was handed over to the Department of Civil Aviation by the International Aero Limited Company on 24 July 1947. In 1960 the runway was upgraded to a 1,829-metre (6,000 ft) long, 43-metre (140 ft) wide gravel-mixed asphalt surface. The airport building was later extended, reopening on 22 March 2002 at 67 by 18 metres, having previously measured 37 by 18 metres. A further major upgrade saw a four-foot-thick asphalt concrete layer laid on the runway, taxiway and apron, opening on 20 May 2009 to allow use by F-28 jet aircraft. Passenger numbers exceeded 90,000 in 2010-11, with a forecast capacity of 150,000 passengers annually for arrivals and departures. On 24 August 1972, a Vickers Viscount of Union of Burma Airways, registration XY-ADF, was damaged beyond economic repair after running off the runway some 450 feet past the designated threshold, its undercarriage collapsing as it skidded roughly 1,250 feet.
Sittwe Airport continues to operate as a domestic airport, with airlines including Mann Yatanarpon Airlines, Mingalar Aviation Services and Myanmar National Airlines operating scheduled services to Yangon and other destinations such as Kyaukpyu, Naypyidaw and Pathein. There has been press reporting that conscription-age passengers arriving at the airport have faced interrogation amid Myanmar's ongoing civil conflict, a factor visiting pilots and travellers should be aware of. No sim-specific scenery availability is noted in the available sources.