Last updated: November 26, 2025
As well travelled as people are, they usually fly to and from busier airports, wait in lines at security, have a cup of coffee. In this blog post, we decided to compile a list of the world's smallest airports that you may be least likely to visit. Especially if you are not only visiting to see these gems of airports.
With thousands of airports worldwide, it's curious to know which are the smallest ones. This is why we compiled a list of the smallest airports in the world based on the length of their runaways.
Let's dive deeper into the smallest airports in the world.
Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport is located on a small mountainous peninsula on the Dutch Caribbean island Saba. It has the shortest commercial runway in the world-- it’s just 400m long — making it the smallest airport in the world.
This tiny airport is served by just one commercial airline, Winair, which only operates in the Lesser Antilles. Its flights to Sint Maarten tend to be quite short-usually shorter than 15 minutes. This also makes it the smallest international airport in the world.
The airport is surrounded by cliffs that end steeply into the sea from three sides. This is one of the reasons why the airport installed a new taxiway lighting system in October 2025. The upgrade to LED lights aims to improve safety and reliability given that the runaway is only 400 m long.
The official airport inauguration took place on July 24, 1963. Unfortunately, the terminal building was destroyed by Hurricane George in 1998 but was reconstructed in 2002.
Even though the airport has endured some tough periods, including a 6-month period without a single flight, today there are nearly 70,000 passenger arrivals and departures each year.
Located in east Nepal, Tenzing-Hillary Airport is not only one of the smallest airports in the world, and also one of the most dangerous. Wikipedia lists no less than ten incidents that have occurred at the airport. One of the many things that makes it so risky is that it has one of the shortest runways in the world. As such, the airport has special operational rules, e.g. visual flight rules, early-morning scheduling, to maintain operational safety.
One of the major reasons for the popularity of the airport is its proximity to Mt. Everest. In fact, at the end of 2024, the airport welcomed a record number of flights -184 in one day — because of a surge in tourism in the Everest region.
The airport is named after Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay-- the first people to successfully summit Mount Everest, the tallest peak in the world. The two actively participated in the airport’s construction. In fact, Sir Edmund was particularly unhappy with the quality of the runway. Edmund Hillary planned to invite Sherpas to flatten the runway ground by foot-stomping.
The smallest airport in the UK and in Europe. There are tons of trivia surrounding Barra Airport. It is considered as one of the airports with the best approaches in the world. And in addition to being one of the smallest airports worldwide, Barra is the only one to have a runway made of sand.
In fact, planes land on a beach, which is rather popular with common beach-goers. Unfortunately, this is also the reason it has one of the highest cancellation rates among the small airports.
The airport is also remarkably famous with filmmakers and has been heavily featured in movies where beach-landings are required.
Its 3 short runways form a triangle and there are wooden poles at their tips. It is always closed during high tide as its runways are left completely submerged. Thus, Barra Airport is only functional for a few hours each day.
The airport is located on Barra Island, beyond the northeast tip of Scotland. The only airlines currently using the airport are Loganair and Flybe.
Even though Toronto City Airport should sound like a major Canadian hub, this is actually one of the smallest airports in Canada. It is, however, the ninth-busiest in the country. In 2017 alone, it accommodated close to 3 million passengers.
The airport bears the name of legendary Canadian pilot and Air Marshal Billy Bishop. It was opened in 1939 and was intended to be Toronto’s main airport but instead, Toronto Pearson took the honour. Since then, Pearson has become Canada’s biggest airport and is one of the busiest in the world, while Toronto City Airport remains one of Canada’s smallest airports. You can catch flights with Air Canada Express and Porter Airlines to the Billy Bishop Airport.
Similarly to the other small airports, Toronto City Airport has to follow special safety rules due to its size. There is a planned project for the construction of Runaway End Safety Area (RESA) which allows the airport to comply with federal safety regulations by July 2027.
Morgantown Airport, sometimes referred to as Walter L. Bill Hart Field is a mostly general-aviation oriented airport. Nevertheless, there is one airline which operates regular scheduled flights-- United Airlines. It carries out flights to Clarksburg and Washington Dulles, one of the biggest airports in the United States.
Despite accommodating one of the biggest airlines in America, only 4% of operations are by jet aircraft, some of which operated by United Express, the regional branch of United Airlines. But there are plans for expansion since passenger numbers are rising, on track for over 10,000 emplacements by the end of 2025.
As the number of flights is rising, the Morgantown Airport is also undergoing a RESA project. The expansion will bring the runaway to almost 2 km and provide safer landing and takeoff.
There is a little caution in calling Glendive Airport the smallest airport in the US. It is classified as a general aviation airport, i.e. an airport intended for private transportation. It is not a commercial service airport. It is, however, part of the US Essential Air Service (EAS) program with Cape Air subsidized to serve the Glendive-Billings area.
Despite this, on its daily flights to Billings, Montana, Cape Air served well over five thousand passengers. Somewhat unfortunately, even once passengers arrive at Billings Airport, they would be limited to connections on domestic flights only.
The only airline operating flights from the single runway of the smallest Australian airport is Alliance Airlines. The carrier provides a regular service to Adelaide.
Despite its small size Olympic Dam accommodated almost 75 thousand passengers. Its main purpose is to serve the Olympic Dam mine close-by, the largest single deposit of uranium in the world!
Moshoeshoe Airport serves Maseru, Lesotho’s capital. It sports two runways-one 3 km long and the other-- just 1 km. It is perched at 1,630 m above sea level. Moshoeshoe is one of three airports in Lesotho.
Passengers can hop on a South African Airways service from one of the smallest airports in the world to Johannesburg O.R. Tambo, Africa’s busiest airport in the last decade. The latter's crowds must feel quite shocking at first.
There's an ongoing rehabilitation of the Moshoeshoe Airport. This includes remodelling of the terminal building, construction works, and improvements around rescue and safety areas. While the financing has been approved by the World-Bank, the project is still at planning and design stage.
Even the smallest airports can experience flight delays and cancellations. In cases, of flight disruptions due to carrier fault you might be entitled to compensation.
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