Karratha Airport

Karratha Airport is an airport in Karratha, Western Australia. The airport is 14km from Karratha and 5NM south of Dampier. With the beginning of the iron ore industry in the early 1960s, Dampier was chosen as the Port for Hamersley Iron's operations and this signaled the beginning of major development in the Pilbara. Roebourne airport was the nearest airport. In 1966 Hamersley Iron constructed an airport on the present Karratha Airport site with a sealed gravel runway and small terminal building and named it Dampier Airport. With the introduction of the Fokker F-28 jet aircraft by MMA in 1969, regular passenger flights by MMA to the unsealed Roebourne airport were discontinued.After several years as a private airport, the airport was taken over by the Shire of Roebourne. Several upgrades have been made over the decades including a new runway, 08/26, and new terminals. The old runway is now used as a taxiway and helicopter landing site (HLS) for the many helicopters servicing the facilities in the North West Shelf gas field and marine pilot transfers for iron ore and gas ships using the nearby ports of Dampier and Walcott. The runway is capable of handling aircraft up to 737-800 size routinely, but can handle up to a Boeing 767-300, Boeing C17 or even Antonov AN124.Karratha Airport is the second busiest airport in Western Australia that handles commercial fights, with Perth Airport being the busiest and has played a major role in the development of the Pilbara region. In the year ending 30 June 2009 the airport handled 486,582 passengers nearly 100,000 increase over 2008 and was ranked 18th busiest in Australia. For the year ending June 2010 it had increased to 587,211 passengers and by 2011 it had reached 675,207 passengers. Of these passengers the vast majority are what is known in Australia as fly-in fly-out workers. The airport is now the 17th busiest. Port Hedland International Airport is 240km northeast of this airport.