Departure
95%
vs 95%
MY FS FLIGHTS
MY FS FLIGHTS
Buyant-Ukhaa International Airport lies on the southern edge of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, and was for decades the country's principal gateway before being superseded by Chinggis Khaan International Airport in 2021. It retains a full-length hard runway with ILS and a secondary grass strip, making it a useful and historically rich destination for a simulator pilot exploring Mongolian airspace.
Buyant-Ukhaa International Airport (ICAO: ZMUB, IATA: ULN) sits at the southern fringe of Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia's capital, and was for many years the nation's main international aerodrome. It is government owned and operated by the Civil Aviation Authority of Mongolia. Since the opening of the new Chinggis Khaan International Airport in 2021 it has become a semi-operational field, retained as a backup and earmarked for flight training, special, charter and government flights, which gives it an interesting mixed character for a visiting sim pilot: a full-scale former international airport now flying at a much quieter tempo.
The airport is located within Khan Uul district in the south of Ulaanbaatar city, roughly 18 kilometres southwest of the city centre, hemmed in by mountainous terrain to its south and east. This terrain historically restricted operations so that only one end of the main runway could be reliably used at a time, with one direction favoured for arrivals and the reciprocal for departures. Ulaanbaatar airspace is otherwise dominated by the newer Chinggis Khaan International Airport (ZMCK) some 52 kilometres to the south, which now handles the bulk of the capital's air traffic.
Buyant-Ukhaa has two physical runways. The primary runway, 14/32, is 10,154 feet long with a hard surface, lit, and equipped with an ILS on the 14 approach. A secondary runway, 15/33, is 6,693 feet long with a dirt surface and is unlit. Field elevation is 4,236 feet.
Ulaanbaatar Approach operates on 120 MHz, with the tower also listed on 120 MHz, ATIS on 125 MHz and Ground on 126 MHz. The 14 approach is served by an ILS, giving instrument arrivals into the main hard runway.
Owing to the mountainous terrain close to the field's southern and eastern sides, only one end of the main runway has historically been usable at a time, with the runway typically flown in one direction for arrivals and the opposite for departures. No further published circuit heights, joining procedures or noise abatement details are available in the sources.
Buyant-Ukhaa was established as Buyant-Ukhaa Central Airport on 19 February 1957. International flights began the following year, in 1958, with Ilyushin Il-14 services to Irkutsk and Beijing, and regular scheduled flights started in 1961. The terminal was upgraded for international traffic in 1986, and following the Mongolian Revolution of 1990 a major redevelopment of the airport and its air navigation facilities was carried out between 1994 and 1997 with Asian Development Bank assistance, bringing the field up to ICAO standards; the US$50 million project was undertaken by a German-English joint venture of Philipp Holzmann and Wimpey Asphalt. On 21 December 2005 the airport was renamed Chinggis Khaan International Airport to mark the 800th anniversary of the founding of the Mongolian state, and it grew steadily through the 2000s, passing one million passengers a year in 2012 and peaking at around 1.6 million in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic sharply reduced traffic. With the opening of the new Chinggis Khaan International Airport in the Khöshigt Valley on 4 July 2021, the older field reverted to its historic name, Buyant-Ukhaa International Airport, on 1 July 2020. In May 2023 it hosted the Buyant-Ukhaa Airshow, the first airshow held in Mongolia.
Buyant-Ukhaa now functions as a semi-operational backup airport to Chinggis Khaan International Airport, with its future role oriented towards flight training as well as special, charter and government flights rather than scheduled international traffic. The airport retains its full-length lit hard runway with ILS alongside the shorter grass/dirt runway, and continues to host aviation-related organisations on site, including the head office of an operating airline and the national Air Accident Investigation Bureau.