Most of us would happily acknowledge that being a pilot is no easy task. Besides a massive responsibility, they have to be vigilant and accurate while guiding a massive metal bird into a populated airspace. And, unfortunately, not all airports are created equal.
Someone asked, “As an airline pilot, which airport would you choose never to land at again if you could help it?” People with flying experience shared the airstrips, airports, and even cities they absolutely hated flying into. So get comfortable, if you are on a flight, look out for your destination here, upvote your favorites, and share your thoughts in the comments section below.
This post may include affiliate links.
Paro in Bhutan can accept twin engine jets, but only seven pilots in the world are certified to make the complex approach between the mountains.
Not a pilot, but as a passenger, Lukla in Nepal was, as my dad says in the video, “seriously interesting”. The runway has a 12% gradient (which is a lot more than it sounds!) with a sheer drop at the bottom and a rock face at the top. I was sitting next to my dad in the front row of the Twin Otter. Luckily I hadn’t researched this airport’s legendary reputation before the trip.
La Guardia. Most dangerous airport in the world. With the runway configuration and the Port Authorities’ ongoing desire to stuff 10 pounds into a 5 pound bag, it is inherently dangerous when landings are interspersed with takeoffs on the crossing runway. I had a near miss in the early 90s and it left me angry and disillusioned with the process when the tower personnel defended their mistakes.
While it’s not the first one to pop up here, Tribhuvan International Airport, in Kathmandu, Nepal, is widely considered one of the most dangerous in the world. Its location, in the literal Himalayan mountains, means that approaches are difficult, weather is unpredictable and the runway doesn’t have a lot of space.
Even worse, unlike a water-based approach, where even a crash isn’t the end of the world, overshooting the runway at Kathmandu might mean going right into the face of a cliff. It perhaps doesn’t appear that much in this list, as only pilots who have passed courses on a simulator are even allowed to land.
USS Lexington - not only is it an aircraft carrier that move, pitches, rolls, heaves, has winds coming around the island causing a cross wind, and wind falling off the back end (burble) causing a suck down just before landing - it is SMALL even in aircraft carrier standards. And with hydraulic cats that kick your butt, literally.
Highly decorated World War 2 Essex Class carrier commissioned in 1943 decommissioned in 1947. Recommissioned in 1955 after being refit to carry jets. Spent 30 years as a training carrier in Florida before being retired in 1991. Currently serving as a museum in Corpus Christi, Texas. She's lovingly cared for by a tremendous crew of volunteers and is a popular thing to do in Corpus. They host many events such as screening the movie Top Gun from the flight deck and my personal favorite, a rodeo in 2021. They moved tons of dirt, bulls, stands, and everything else needed for a rodeo up to the flight deck.
Here’s a situation I don’t want to repeat. I was flying into Zaragoza Air Base on a military plane, a C-21. I’d been sitting in the jump seat chatting on intercom with the pilot the whole flight. He was a neighbor back at our base.
Notice there are parallel runways. We always landed on the Northern one, the military Air Base side. The Southern one was a civilian commercial airport.
We’re set up for the landing with the co-pilot doing the landing. We’re coming from screen left so we see the wrong runway first. I’m looking out the windshield and notice we’re lined up for the wrong one.
I ask, “Which runway are we landing?”
Co-pilot responds, “12”.
I ask, “12 Right or 12 Left?”
At that moment we all see a large commercial plane on take-off roll heading our way on the runway we’re set to land on.
Pilot says “My Plane”, flips some switches, Yells to the guys in the back, “Hold on back there!”, and puts the C-21 into max power / max climb. I didn’t even know that plane could climb that fast. We complete a missed approach /go around and the pilot lands us on the correct runway with a co-pilot still white as a ghost.
Needless to say, I didn’t buy a beer for that whole mission; they were all on the co-pilot’s tab.
THE most difficult airport to fly in and out of is the Tenzing-Hillary airport in Lukla, Nepal. On one end is a cliff; on the other is a mountain wall. On the way, you are flying between mountains, and there are often clouds.
While technically it's "easier" than Courchevel Altiport (same length, similar elevation, but less steep inclination), Lukla is among the most dangerous because the level of training for pilots in the area is not stellar (despite mandatory minimum standards and training for the specific airport). There have been half a dozen accidents all but one from pilot mistakes. Nepal is among the countries with the highest number of aviation incidents, mostly from lack of infrastructure and poor pilot training, to the point that Nepalese airlines are barred from flying in the western world and Nepalese certifications are not recognized.
It doesn’t help that the runway does not have an instrument landing system, which makes landing, already one of the more difficult parts of any pilot's job, just that little bit harder. Winters in Nepal tend to have a lot of fog, so sometimes the pilot will have neither visibility nor all the instruments they might need to actually do their job.
Gibraltar. To stay out of Spanish airspace, you have to fly very tight around the rock. If the wind is blowing, it is incredibly turbulent... Scary.
I've walked and driven across there many times. Now they've built a tunnel at the east end of the runway so no need to wait and watch the planes land anymore. Saw Elton John there a while back and we were walking back into Spain after the concert and they shut the runway for Elton's private jet to take of, vey poetic moment. Daniel is travelin' tonight on a plane I can see the red taillights headin' for Spain......
Practically almost any airport near LAX. The problem is not landing, but leaving. John Wayne is the worst. You have to climb out steeply then pull your power back and almost level off, all the while staying in a very narrow departure corridor. Frankly, if you buy a house near an airport you should expect to hear airplanes. They didn't doze down a bunch of homes to put the airport in. It was there first.
Aspen (ASE) airport. Everything about it is frustrating. The approach requires going out of your way, and if you miss the approach it takes a bit of time to re-position for another try. Once on the ground, dealing with parking and the ground staff is frustrating, too. But, maybe that part has changed… I haven’t been to ASE in a few years. There is no such thing as landing at an unsafe airport… unless you’re a pilot with exceedingly poor judgement. If it’s truly unsafe, then you don’t land there. However, iffy procedures and trying to cram an airplane that doesn’t fit into the airport can certainly make it dangerous.
Whoever complains about Aspen has never seen Courchevel Altiport. Same altitude, 1/4th the runway lenght. On a slope. With a cliff on one end and a steep dive on the other. Without instrumental aids, and with minimal lighting. Pilots trained on aircraft carriers consider that a hard place to land in.
Of course, landing on an aircraft carrier is still, on the whole, probably a lot harder. Yes, you might miss the runway, and yes, you might end up in the ocean. But at least water is a bit “softer” than a cliff face and there is an entire vessel nearby that will attempt a rescue. Plus, the sorts of planes that land on aircraft carriers tend to not have hundreds of passengers, so there isn’t that responsibility hovering over the pilot.
I’m always alert when we operate at DCA, National Airport in Washington DC. The river visual approach isn’t particularly dangerous but any deviation gets you into restricted airspace and the consequences are embarrassing and newsworthy. I always pay a lot of attention there.
Ah yes. I used to fly next to restricted airspace (fighter base) and woe betide if their ATC thought you got as much as a wingtip into their airspace. Hell, we'd be flying 1km inside our own airspace and if it was a slow day for them they'd get on our frequency just to "remind" us not to stray over the line...
I am not a pilot but as a long standing airline employee, I cannot believe anyone has yet to mention CR7 International Airport in Funchal, (FNC) Madeira. I visited that gorgeous paradise once. Love, love the island of Madeira, but my first experience landing there happened on rainy, foggy, mid February day in 1989 when the single runway was much shorter, less wide than it currently is. On windy days (which are most days) the aircrafts ride the currents like goshawks, balancing left and right, at times barely avoiding slamming against the flank of the mountain, or on the runway if low enough. Do this on a windy, gray, foggy day, or worst still at night, and it can be a real nightmare. With little or nill visibility, if you overshoot the runway or get hit by a downward wind spiral, you are toast. The famous crosswinds of Madeira can kill an aircraft and even on a good day, FNC can get any stone assed pilot s**ting bricks on 1st landing attempt, usually aborted.
Can confirm landing or taking off from Madeira is exciting. Thank goodness for diazepam
Well, the Lake Tahoe Airport is pretty bad. I would never land there because there is a much safer Airport not far away which is called Douglas County Airport. Flying into Lake Tahoe is like flying into a toilet bowl. Flying out of Lake Tahoe it's like flying out of a toilet bowl. However, there may be some Pilots who like the challenge of difficult airports.
Many of the airports on this list are islands. Generally, this means an approach over water and a short runway. After all, islands, by definition, tend to not exactly have the most space in the world. This means very little room for error in both takeoff and landing, which are, as stated, generally the most risky and difficult parts of flying. So perhaps forget that next time you are traveling.
As an old (85 now) private pilot, I found both landing and taking off at the Catalina airport on Catalina Island both challenging and fun.The runway is atop a plateau, so your approach is over the water. While you are very high over the water you are much lower relative to the airport runway. Then when you take off, the runway is humped in the middle. Sitting at the end of the runway, it looks like it ends a few hundred feet in front of you due to the bow, but as you accelerate more and more runway appears as you get neat the top of the hump. You have to trust your chart for the runway length as it’s not visible from the end of the runway.
Juneau, Alaska is pretty scary. There’s this big honkin’ mountain at the end of the runway. You land going one way and fly out going the other.
Can confirm. The Dutch Harbor Airport is worse. One end of the runway ends in the Bering Sea, the other end in the North Pacific. Crazy winds and weather. PenAir pilots have balls of steel!
Innsbruck, Austria, is in a mountain valley. It isn’t serviced by very large aircraft, but it scares the buggery out of me.
The other, perhaps less common, category of airport on this list is one over very restricted airspace. Some list Washington DC as a great example of that, but at least one can assume the US might not be too trigger-happy. Others have stated that landing in Berlin during the Cold War was its own “special” nightmare, as it meant flying over East German airspace and hoping you don’t nudge the controls the wrong way.
Of all the major airports that have existed to date, there has to be one right answer: Kai Tak Airport, specifically Runway 13, in Hong Kong.
I have had too many pilot friends and friends and family mentioning the apparent nightmare landing in that airport used to be.
It was apparently so difficult to land in that airport that as a pilot you needed to have a special permit to authorise you to even make the journey... and accidents still kept happening.
The reason why it was so hard was basically because of the airport's surrounding terrain. A short heads up to architects of the future - please don't build your airport in the middle of a densely-populated city centre surrounded by mountains. It is generally not a good idea. That said, Hong Kong grew extremely quickly, so it was entirely possible that the original designers of Kai Tak Airport did not envision such rapid urban growth.
Kai Tak shut in ‘98. I’m kinda proud of that fact, my Dad was on the negotiating team that signed the deal for the extension of the island that Hong Kong International Airport currently stands on, it was a huge bit of civil engineering that reclaimed a huge chunk of sea that they built the airport on. My Dad spent time in Hong Kong and Japan working with the civil engineers there and ironing out a LOT of red tape issues and legal eagle stuff that was required to get the project over the line. He travelled from the U.K. (as he worked for a British Civil Engineering Company) to work out there, we as a family got to hitch a ride to Japan and Hong Kong a couple of times and loved it. Can’t say enough nice things about the people we met there, it was both an eye opening experience and a joy. Wish he hadn’t retired, those trips to foreign lands were superb 😀
Alton Bay in January/February. It’s the only FAA authorized ice-runway in the lower 48 states. You’re landing on a frozen lake and trying to steer and slow to a stop in an airplane, which is already difficult to maneuver on the ground, let alone adding in the complexities of doing it on ice.
Have you guys ever heard of Santos Dumont Airport in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) or Congonhas Airport in São Paulo (Brazil)? Not a pilot but I HATE those places. Landings and take-offs are just terrifying. In São Paulo you can actually see people in their couches watching TV inside the apartments of tall buildings that surrounds the airport. In Rio, one mistake and your airplane will take a swim like the pic below (and you can stay at the very end of the 2 runaways while aircrafts come and go… that’s amazing)
Skiathos in Greece. It's a short runway with nothing but the Aegean at both ends and hills on both sides. And it's inclined, although slightly.
Not only that, but the runway used to be too short to allow a fully fuelled aircraft (commercial passenger jets) to take off. They used to have to fly to Thessalonika and refuel there. Remember doing that when returning to the UK as a child. Oh, and they refuelled the plane with the passengers still on it, and you had to be ready for an emergency evacuation, so you had to remain seated with everything stowed. Seem to remember they couldn't run the aircon either, so it was hot as well.
My least favorite is Narita’s New Tokyo International Airport. Not because of terrain, or runway lengths, but because of the frequent, dangerous, unstable 'wind events.' Winds of 50–80+ knots suddenly come out of nowhere, and they can wreak havoc with landing aircraft. Diverts to nearby airports happen often, because of dangerous wind conditions.
At the airclub where I used to fly there was sometimes a pretty nasty downdraft on the landing approach. I only experienced it once and it was a pretty white-knuckling experience having to extend the flaps fully, retract the airbrake and hope you're making the end of the runway (sailplaine, so no engine for a go-around), but one year when I wasn't flying one woman who was visiting from another airclub didn't know about it and got seriously injured (broke both her legs) when she made the runway but too low and with too much vertical velocity, so the landing gear collapsed and crushed the front of the cockpit.
JFK.
Being delayed is normal. Being number 29 for takeoff is normal. Having slot times is normal.
In short, the New Yorks are a hassle.
I was at JFK once as a passenger. We had flown in from Paris and had a connection to Atlanta, but the plane just parked on the apron and sat there instead of going to a gate, because of a delayed Delta flight which was still at the gate we were assigned to. So instead they got some airstairs and all of us who had connections got out onto the runway and were then escorted (by guards armed with MP-5s, since this was shortly after 9/11!) through the maintenance tunnels and out through a hidden door into the terminal, where we rejoined the normal passenger areas. It was utterly surreal and somehow even our luggage made it onto the connecting flight.
Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, in Dhaka, Bangladesh is far by the worst place I have ever landed on. I really do not know where to start. When you are in Dhaka, you keep your eyes and ears open. Most of the airport vehicle operators are highly incompetent. They are under trained and do long duty hours. A few months back, a flap fairing of one of our A320s was torn off by a high loader. I had a close call as well. Got almost hit by a reversing baggage loader while I was doing the walk around.
The air traffic control is also terrible. I do not know whether it is the fault of the controllers or the equipment they are using. There is usually one controller controlling the entire air space, and when it gets busy things go haywire. Particularly, the handover from Dhaka FIR to Kolkata FIR is horrible. We have to keep the Dhaka frequency on one of the radios and the other radio tuned to Kolkata frequency. It is a two pilots job. One pilot listens to Kolkata and the other listens to the Dhaka. And mind you, these are busy air spaces. There is no silence even for a minute. And the worst part is weather deviation requests. Dhaka is known for its tropical storms. You might have to ask them twice or even three times for a deviation. And the time they come on they might say ‘standby.’ They have no clue of the intensity of the situation.
Years ago I remember a “60-Minutes” news program about the San Diego Airport. Something about a tall building in the way. I just checked, and it’s still there.
I was going to mention this, as San Diego is my hometown and made this landing plenty of times. You come in over the city as you're landing and you get pretty low to some hills and buildings but you can't be too low because right before the landing strip is a multi-story parking garage (shown in the picture). So you almost skim that then have to drop down kind of steeply to make sure you get down onto the runway. It's a little sketchy but the views coming in are pretty nice. And the airport is right on the bay so you get to see the water and everything.
Los Angeles International. It’s not a bad airport to land in, but you have so many restrictions and airspace overlaps that it is just stressful to land there. I’m just glad we have to be on a flight plan with instructions from ATC when we do have to land there.
As a passenger I always found LAX to be a strange airport - random folk could just walk in from outside and access the baggage carousel. Been a while since I was last there so things may have changed but I just thought it was bizarre how your baggage could get stolen before you even made it through arrivals / customs to collect it...
Telluride comes to mind. It’s a box canyon tilted 3 degrees with a huge sagging area in the middle of the runway.
Akureyri, Iceland. It’s located at sea level down in a fjord that curves, meaning in the days before GPS approaches, you had a choice of either a) flying an approach that stopped above the rim of the fjord, or b) receiving radar instructions throughout your descent to the airport.
Under actual instrument conditions, flying down through clouds trusting purely on controller guidance was always unnerving. Iceland has a sterling domestic safety record, so there never was any worry on that score. However, if you’d ever been there before in good weather and seen just how narrow portions of the approach path actually were, a few palpitations were forgivable.
The ones that are supposed to be the hardest are the most fun.
There’s nothing interesting about getting lined up 10 miles out on a radar vector straight-in approach to a 10,000 runway.
THE FUN ONES
Luckily I spent most of my career flying the Eastern Shuttle between Washington National (DCA) and NY La Guardia (LGA). Those two airports have probably the most interesting and challenging approaches in the country. It was a fun way to be an airline pilot—and I slept at home every night.
At National, for example, we would be in a descending turn until about 200-300 feet above the runway. We liked to point out that if we made that exact approach to any other airport, we would get reported to the FAA by the tower and our licenses would be suspended for a while.
Landing on Runway 33 at DCA—which was rare to get—was so much fun I couldn’t believe it was legal to do that in a jet with paying passengers on board. People who rode through that approach in window seats have stopped by the cockpit on the way out and—still a little breathless from thinking they were about to die—say they thought we were ditching in the Potomac River until about the last two seconds when the runway suddenly appeared below. It was so much fun.
San Diego Lindbergh (SAN) is a close third. If we flew that low over houses anywhere else in the country, we’d definitely be violated, fired, and our licenses would have been revoked rather than just suspended—but it’s the norm at SAN.
SO, WHICH WOULD I NEVER LAND AT AGAIN IF I COULD HELP IT?
Every airport with wide, parallel 10,000+ runways with long straight approaches.
It’s hard enough to stay awake while cruising at altitude on autopilot—the last thing I need is to fall asleep on a long, droning approach on autopilot.
Love it how all three DCA, LGA and SAN made it onto this list multiple times but here they're classed as "fun". XD
I fly ATR 42 and 72. I have never hated any of the airports I have landed on, but some require more attention than others. Here is my personal list:
Sandane, Norway: This is a 800 meters long runway squeezed between fjords and mountains. The approach to either runway takes you very close to near vertical mountain sides, and the turbulence can be bad. I have only landed there in nice weather with a light aircraft.
Florø, Norway: Before 2001 was the runway 800 meters long and had a 5.4 degrees steep approach slope. (Today is the runway 1200 meters.) The airport has mountains in close vicinity. One of the runways do not have straight-in approach, so you have to fly a circling approach. After a landing at late night in rain and strong wind is it hard to sleep because the adrenalin is still flowing in your veins.
Caticlan/Boracay, Philippines: The runway is 900 meters long, and the apron is very small. You have to taxi in and out with just centimeters clearance to other aircraft parked on the apron. And the apron is full of passengers walking to and from the aircraft.
Catarman, Philippines: The airport splits the town in two, and people are used to cross the runway where it is most convenient. After all, there’s just a few aircraft movements a day. I have seen kids running on the runway in front of me.
Manila, Philippines: The airport has two runways, and they cross each other. Two times have I been given clearance to take-off and then been ordered to stop because of crossing traffic. The quality of the radio equipment used by ATC is questionable, and sometimes can you hardly understand what they say. And there’s too much traffic on the frequency, making it hard to send your message. At one occasion did ATC forget me after take-off, and I ended up on a collision course with a mountain. At another occasion did the use of non-standard phraseology cause conflict with other traffic.
It’s not the worst in the world by far. But Lindbergh Field, the international airport in San Diego in Southern California (designation: SAN) is one that will make sure that the pilots stay awake on final approach.
We’ve got hills 200 feet high within a mile of both ends of the one and only runway with no possibility of aligning it any differently.
I didn’t know this airport was so dangerous. It looks like from a passenger perspective that there’s a good path through the city to reach it. I guess not.
Hanada, Japan is a procedural headache, at least compared to Narita.
Kaului, Maui can be a pain. The runway is on the shorter side at 7000 ft and it's not unusual for the winds to be reported something like “280 variable 030 degrees ,15 gusting 25 kts” , lots of fun.
Pendleton, Oregon has a runway with a significant dip which can play heck with a smooth landing if you land long on the upslope
Just some of the ones that come to mind.
South Lake Tahoe Airport, CA. If you’re attempting to land and have to make a missed approach or taking off heading south (view is to the south) you’ll obviously have to do some serious climbing to avoid running into the nearby mountains. I was the nav on a C-141 that made a touch-and-go in just this direction, and the pilot was not anticipating the elevation increasing so rapidly, so I had to give him some very quick vectoring to make it out safely. Although not too obvious from this view, there is a sort-of valley that can be followed that makes it much easier than simply climbing right over the dead-ahead peak. We were there because we had flown a Local out of Travis AFB and had completed all the requirements for that day with flight time left over (we had to log 4.0 hrs), so the A/C said, “Let’s go to Tahoe!”.
Apparently flying in and out of here, is like flying in and out of a toilet bowl. So I’ve been told.
Several pilots I know have told me that in the US, Yeager Airport, Charleston, West Virginia, is one of the hardest. It is a very short runway tucked away on a flattened mountain top. Having flown in as a passenger a number of times, this is the one where the pilots attempt to decelerate the fastest (faster than Midway is how it felt to me). The weather can also be a bit tricky here I would think as well.
I was waiting to see if this was going to make the list. I have flown in and out of here a lot and it's horrible!
Recently it’s Burbank because we land there at close to max landing weight sometimes and we have to go below the GS, hit the 1,000-foot mark, and lock up the brakes... It’s got mountains around it, lots of traffic, and many times they don’t clear us to land until a couple miles out, and I have to figure out what the tailwind is really quick.
Burbank is usually a very calm passenger experience. Only two terminals, few if any international flights, quick security, fairly clean. There isn’t a jetway, so you stair onto the plane, which is nice because you can disembark from the front and back (much quicker).
LaGuardia aka LaGarbage. It’s awful. The nickname says it all.
Newark, also not the most pleasant airport to fly in to. I spent 4 hours taxiing there. Well, we left the gate, came back to the gate for more fuel after 90 minutes, after fuel and additional supplies, we taxied back out, only to have the airport turn around. It was miserable. The captain I was flying with said that is fairly common.
Chicago O’Hare is one of my least favorites. It’s laid out terribly.
I personally hate flying in the Aspen, Colorado. The approach is complicated, and often times you have to fly a holding pattern because traffic is one way in, one way out.
While I wasn’t flying for an airline, the Moscow, Russia airports are not fun.
Those are the only ones that stick out for me.
Pictured is O'hare, btw. Very distinctive for those who know airports.
I’m not an airline pilot but since getting my licence ( earned at a 200 x 7000 ft runway ) I’ve made an effort to expand my horizons, shorter, narrower strips, some not even paved. Been to grass, gravel, & sand.
The challenging strips are by far the most interesting. If I had to choose, I’d lose the 7000 x 200……..
I’ve done some aerobatics ( about 8 hrs so far ) - that is awesome flying ! ( more to come, for sure )
It's not one of the most dangerous airports but landing at SFO near San Francisco always sketches me out. You approach over the San Francisco Bay and you're just about skimming the water before you hit the runway.
I do like some of the airports here in the Caribbean, as a passenger of course lol, just ground ground...take off...immediate ocean lol...a lot of the runways are on the coast.
The one on Beef Island, British Virgin Islands has a sign on the fence between the main road and the end of the runway, 'Beware low flying aircraft'. The undercarriage is literally just a few yards above your head if you are stupid enough to stand there.
Load More Replies... It's not one of the most dangerous airports but landing at SFO near San Francisco always sketches me out. You approach over the San Francisco Bay and you're just about skimming the water before you hit the runway.
I do like some of the airports here in the Caribbean, as a passenger of course lol, just ground ground...take off...immediate ocean lol...a lot of the runways are on the coast.
The one on Beef Island, British Virgin Islands has a sign on the fence between the main road and the end of the runway, 'Beware low flying aircraft'. The undercarriage is literally just a few yards above your head if you are stupid enough to stand there.
Load More Replies...