Incredible Island Airports

1. Ibrahim Nasir International Airport, Maldives

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Ibrahim Nasir International Airport, more commonly known as Malé International Airport, previously known as Hulhulé Airport, is the main international airport in the Maldives. It is located on Hulhulé Island in the North Malé Atoll, nearby the capital island Malé.

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Today, Ibrahim Nasir International is well connected with major airports around the world, mostly serving as the main gateway into the Maldives for tourists. Moreover, despite the upgrading of Gan Airport to international standard, Ibrahim Nasir International is currently the only internationally active airport in the country.

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On 26 July 2011, Male' International Airport was officially renamed as 'Ibrahim Nasir International Airport' in memory of Ibrahim Nasir, 2nd President of the Maldives. He is known for initiating the airport in 1960.

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The airport resides at an elevation of 6 feet (2m) above mean sea level. It has one runway with an asphalt surface measuring 3,200 m × 45 m (10,499 ft × 148 ft). [link, map]

2. Chūbu Centrair International Airport, Japan

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Chūbu Centrair International Airport is an airport on an artificial island in Ise Bay, Tokoname City in Aichi Prefecture, 35 km (22 mi) south of Nagoya in central Japan.

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Airport is classified as a first class airport and is the main international gateway for the Chūbu ("central") region of Japan. Chūbu is Japan's third off-shore airport, after Nagasaki Airport and Kansai International Airport, and is also the second airport built in Japan on a manmade island. There are currently 5 offshore airports in Japan, including Kobe Airport and Kitakyushu Airport.

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The main terminal is shaped like a "T," with three piers radiating from a central ticketing area. This design keeps check-in distances below 300 m (980 ft). Originally, designers planned to make the main terminal resemble an origami crane from above, but this plan was abandoned due to cost.

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Some 11,721,673 people used the airport in 2006, ranking 8th busiest in the nation. 273,874 tons of cargo was moved in 2005. For the fiscal year ending in March 2011, the above figures have dropped considerably to 9.06 million passengers. 

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Combined international and domestic cargo figures totaled just 151,000 tons for the same year, a dramatic drop that can be largely blamed on the substantially weakened manufacturing economy since the fall of 2008 in the Aichi region. [link, map]

3. Maamigili Airport, Maldives

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Maamigili Airport is located on the island of Maamigili in Alif Dhaal Atoll (also known as Ari Atholhu Dhekunuburi) in the Maldives and was opened on 1st October 2011.

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The airport resides at an elevation of 6 feet (2m) above mean sea level. It has one runway with a concrete surface measuring 1,800 by 30 metres (5,906 ft × 98 ft). [link, map]

4. Kobe Airport, Japan

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Kobe Airport is an airport on an artificial island just off the coast of Kobe, 8 km (5.0 mi) south of Sannomiya Station Japan. It primarily handles domestic flights, but can also accommodate international charter flights.

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In the first year of operation (2006) the airport handled 2,697,000 passengers with an average load factor of 61.1%. In FY 2010 it handled 2,215,000 passengers with an average load factor of 69.2%.

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Some international charter flights also use Kobe Airport. Although the airport's runway is not long enough to handle long-range flights to Europe and the Americas, it occasionally handlescharters to China and other nearby countries.

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The Transport Ministry has banned "scheduled international charters" and has capped scheduled domestic operations at 30 daily flights in order to prevent overcrowding in the area's airspace and to protect the growth of Kansai Airport. The flight caps have been a point of controversy with Kobe Airport supporters, who point out that the cap was calculated based on Kansai Airport operating twice as many frequencies as are currently offered: given the current traffic levels at Kansai, Kobe should be able to handle six or seven flights per hour. [link, map]

5. Hong Kong International Airport, China

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Hong Kong International Airport is the main airport in Hong Kong. It is located on the island of Chek Lap Kok, which is largely reclaimed for the construction of the airport itself. The airport is also colloquially known as Chek Lap Kok Airport, to distinguish it from its predecessor, the closed Kai Tak Airport.

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The airport has been commercially operational since 1998, replacing the former Kai Tak Airport, and is an important regional trans-shipment centre, passenger hub and gateway for destinations in Mainland China (with over 40 destinations) and the rest of Asia. The airport is currently the world's busiest cargo gateway and one of the world's busiest passenger airports.

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It is a focus city for many airlines, including China Airlines and China Eastern Airlines, which serves 18 flights to Hong Kong per day (one direction) from 15 cities. Virgin Atlantic, United and Air India use Hong Kong as a stopover point for flights respectively from London to Sydney, from Tokyo to Singapore and Ho Chi Minh City as well as from India to Osaka and Seoul. [link, map]

source Incredible Island Airports, Nice n Funny 
6. Henderson Field, USA

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Henderson Field is a public airport located on Sand Island in Midway Atoll, an unincorporated territory of the United States. The airport is used as an emergency diversion point for ETOPS operations. It still serves this capacity, most recently in June 2011 and again in July 2012.

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Henderson Field is an uncontrolled airport (no tower). Flight arrivals and departures are typically limited to night during the months of October - August when albatross are present (Midway Atoll is the world's largest nesting albatross colony). [link, map]

7. Kitakyushu Airport, Japan

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Kitakyushu Airport is an airport in Kokuraminami-ku, Kitakyushu, Fukuoka Japan. It is built on an artificial island in the western Seto Inland Sea, 3 km (1.9 mi) away from the main body of the city. It opened on March 16, 2006, as New Kitakyushu Airport but was renamed in 2008. It is designated a second class airport, and it has some international charter flights.

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The runway is 2,500 by 60 m (8,202 by 197 ft) (with a separate taxiway of 2,500 by 30 m (8,202 by 98 ft)), enough to accommodate Boeing 747s and other large jet aircraft. The manmade island on which the airport is built is 4,125 m (13,533 ft) long and 900 m (2,953 ft) wide (3.73 km2 (1.44 sq mi)). Due to the island's size and the relative shallowness of the surrounding water, about 7 m (23 ft), future expansion is possible. [link, map]

8. Macau International Airport, China

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Macau International Airport is situated at the eastern end of Taipa island and neighbouring waters, is the only airport in Macau, which opened for commercial operations in November 1995.

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The airport's runway was built on a strip of reclaimed land in the sea, adjacent to Taipa Island, where the main terminal and air traffic control facilities are located. The runway is connected to the apron by two causeways.

Runway at the moment of construction  link

The airport's designed capacity is 6,000,000 passengers per year, with processing capacity of up to 2,000 passengers per hour. The airport does not have a night curfew. There are 24 parking spaces for aircraft in the apron, with 4 jetways.

Airplane used causeway to reach the runway located on an artificial island  link

Despite its small physical size, the airport is capable of handling Boeing 747s and Antonov 124s, which forms a vital freight link between local manufacturers and overseas markets. Its catering facility can produce up to 10,000 meals per day. [link, map]

9. Kansai International Airport, Japan

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Kansai International Airport is an international airport located on an artificial island in the middle of Osaka Bay, 38 km (24 mi) southwest of Ōsaka Station, located within three municipalities, including Izumisano (north), Sennan (south), and Tajiri (central), in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. The airport is off the Honshu shore. The airport serves as an international hub for All Nippon Airways, Japan Airlines, and Nippon Cargo Airlines, and also serves as a hub for Peach, the first international low-cost carrier in Japan. It is colloquially known as Kankū in Japanese.

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Construction started in 1987. The sea wall was finished in 1989 (made of rock and 48,000 tetrahedral concrete blocks). Three mountains were excavated for 21,000,000 m3 (27,000,000 cu yd) of landfill. 10,000 workers and 10 million work hours over three years, using eighty ships, were needed to complete the 30-metre (98 ft) layer of earth over the sea floor and inside the sea wall. In 1990, a three kilometer bridge was completed to connect the island to the mainland at Rinku Town, at a cost of $1 billion.

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The island had been predicted to sink 5.7m (19 ft) by the most optimistic estimate as the weight of the material used for construction compressed the seabed silts. However, by this time, the island had sunk 8.2m (27 ft) - much more than predicted. The project became the most expensive civil works project in modern history after twenty years of planning, three years of construction and several billion dollars of investment.

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Much of what was learned went into the successful artificial islands in silt deposits for New Kitakyushu Airport, Kobe Airport, and Chūbu Centrair International Airport. The lessons of Kansai Airport were also applied in the construction of Hong Kong International Airport. [link,map]

10. Nagasaki Airport, Japan

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Nagasaki Airport is an international airport located 4 km (2.5 mi) west of the railway station in the city of Ōmura and 18 km (11 mi) north northeast of the Nagasaki railway station in the city of Nagasaki, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. The airport terminal and runway are on an island, and the shorter runway is on the mainland.

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The current island runway and terminal opened on May 1, 1975. Although Nagasaki is superficially similar to Japan's other island airports, Kansai International Airport, Kobe Airport, Kitakyushu Airport, and Chūbu Centrair International Airport, Nagasaki's island existed (in a radically different shape) before the airport was constructed. Constructing the airport required flattening the island's hills and forming landfill around its shore, expanding it from 0.9 to 1.54 km2 (0.35 to 0.59 sq mi). [link, map]

11. Marshall Islands International Airport, Marshall Islands

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Marshall Islands International Airport, also known as Amata Kabua International Airport, is an airport located in the western part of Rairok on the south side of Majuro Atoll, the capital of the Republic of the Marshall Islands. The airport was built sometime after World War II (1943) on Anenelibw and Lokojbar islets. It replaced Majuro Airfield a coral-surfaced airstrip at Delap Island near the eastern end of Majuro Atoll that had been originally constructed by Japanese occupation forces in 1942.

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A series of single floor structures (small hangars) makeup the airport terminal. No physical structures existed at the airport prior to the 1970s. The current terminal structure and modern runway/apron were built in 1971. Passengers from flights arriving at the airport use stairs to exit aircraft and walk to the terminal. [link, map]

Amazing Abandoned Islands Where Time Has Stopped

1. Hirta, Scotland, UK

Abandoned village on the island of Hirta (in the picture can be seen a few renovated houses used by scientists)  link

Hirta is the largest island in the St Kilda archipelago, on the western edge of Scotland. This island may have been permanently inhabited for at least two millennia, the population probably never exceeding 180 (and certainly no more than 100 after 1851). The entire population was evacuated from Hirta in 1930, due to disease and outside influences.

Street in the abandoned village  link

Currently, temporary residents of this island are defence personnel, conservation workers, volunteers and scientists who spend time here during the summer months. [link, map]

2. Holland Island, Maryland, USA

Island in 2008  link

Holland Island is a marshy, rapidly-eroding island in the Chesapeake Bay, in Dorchester County, Maryland, west of Salisbury. The island was once inhabited by watermen and farmers, but has since been abandoned.

The last house on Holland Island in May 2010. This house fell into the bay in October 2010  link

By 1910, the island had about 360 residents, making it one of the largest inhabited islands in the Chesapeake Bay. The wind and tide began to seriously erode the west side of the island, where most of the houses were located, in 1914. This forced the inhabitants to move to the mainland. [link, map]

3. North Brother Island, New York, USA

Skeletons of abandoned Buildings and Docks on North Brother Island  link

North Brother Island is an island in the East River situated between the Bronx and Riker's Island. Its companion, South Brother Island, is a short distance away. The island was uninhabited until 1885, when Riverside Hospital moved there from Blackwell's Island (now known as Roosevelt Island). Riverside Hospital was founded in the 1850s as the Smallpox Hospital to treat and isolate victims of that disease. Its mission eventually expanded to other quarantinable diseases. The hospital was closed around 1940.

The road between the abandoned buildings  link

Now a bird sanctuary, the island is currently abandoned and off-limits to the public. Most of the original hospitals' buildings still stand, but are heavily deteriorated and in danger of collapse. A dense forest conceals the ruined hospital buildings, and from the 1980s through the early 2000s it supported one of the area's largest nesting colonies of Black-crowned Night Heron. However as of 2011 this species has abandoned the island, for unknown reasons. [link, map]

4. Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands

Welcome sign at the Enyu aristrip on Bikini Atoll, site of post-WWII nuclear bomb testing  link

Bikini Atoll is an atoll, listed as a World Heritage Site, in the Micronesian Islands of the Pacific Ocean, part of Republic of the Marshall Islands. Humans have inhabited the atoll for at least 2,000 years. Bikini was visited by only a dozen or so ships before the establishment of the German colony of the Marshall Islands in 1885.

source Amazing Abandoned Islands Where Time Has Stopped, Nice n Funny 

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Between 1946 and 1958, twenty-three nuclear devices were detonated at Bikini Atoll. The Micronesian inhabitants, who numbered about 200 before the United States relocated them because of radiation, ate fish, shellfish, bananas, and coconuts. A large majority of the Bikinians were moved to Kili Island as part of their temporary homestead, but remain there today and receive compensation from the United States government for their survival. [link, map] 

5. Hashima Island, Japan

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Hashima Island, commonly called Gunkanjima, is one among 505 uninhabited islands in the Nagasaki Prefecture about 15 kilometers from Nagasaki itself. The island was populated from 1887 to 1974 as a coal mining facility. The island's most notable features are the abandoned concrete buildings and the sea wall surrounding it.

Abandoned buildings on the island of Hashima  

The island has been administered as part of Nagasaki city since 2005; it had previously been administered by the former town of Takashima. It is known for its coal mines and their operation during the industrialization of Japan. Mitsubishi bought the island in 1890 and began the project, the aim of which was retrieving coal from undersea mines. [link, map]

6. Great Blasket Island, Ireland

Abandoned houses on Great Blasket Island  link

Great Blasket is the principal island of the Blaskets, County Kerry, Ireland. The island was inhabited until 1953, when the Irish government decided that it could no longer guarantee the safety of the remaining population. It was the home of three noted Irish writers: Tomás Ó Criomhthain, Peig Sayers and Muiris Ó Súilleabháin.

The view from the island  link

Until 1953, the inhabitants of Great Blasket Island formed the most westerly settlement in Ireland. The small fishing community (even at its peak the population was hardly more than 150) mostly lived in primitive cottages perched on the relatively sheltered north-east shore. Today, the island was abandoned and sold to the state. [link, map]

7. Stroma, Scotland, UK

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Stroma is an island off the northern coast of the Scottish mainland. Once populous, this uninhabited island is owned by a Caithness farmer who uses it to graze sheep.  In the past Stroma had a population of about 550, which by 1901 had reduced to around 375. The population continued to decline through the 20th century, and most of the last residents left in the early 1960s to work on the construction of the Dounreay power station. The last two families left around 1962.

The school on Stroma, it is now used as a shed for shearing sheep  link

The number of ruined houses shows how well populated the island was at one time. In the centre of the island is a church with a bell tower. Next to the church is the manse which is kept habitable for use by visiting shepherds, particularly at lambing time. Stroma is now a conservation area with an area fenced off to protect the rare plants from the sheep. [link, map]

8. Great Isaac Cay, Bahamas

Great Isaac Cay is a small Bahamian island located about 20 miles (32 km) of the Bimini Islands. It is accessible only by boat. The most prominent feature of the island is its lighthouse, which was erected in 1859, and stands about 151 feet (46 m) tall. In 1969 the island was abandoned by the two keepers who were guarding the lighthouse and other buildings.

The grounds are open to the public, although the lighthouse itself has had stairs removed to block access to the interior of that structure. The keepers’ house, cistern, and assorted buildings are crumbling into ruins. The derelict collection of abandoned buildings make Great Isaac Cay a popular destination for boaters. [map]

9. Pollepel Island, New York, USA

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Pollepel Island is an island in the Hudson River. Also known as Pollopel Island and Bannerman Island, it is the site of Bannerman's Castle. This Island is about 50 miles (80 km) north of New York City and about 1,000 feet (300 m) from the Hudson River's eastern shore.

The ruins of Bannerman's castle  link

The principal feature on the island is Bannerman's Castle, an abandoned military surplus warehouse. Today, the castle is property of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation and is mostly in ruins. While the exterior walls still stand, all the internal floors and non-structural walls have since burned down. The island has been the victim of vandalism, trespass, neglect and decay. [link, map]

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