Bahrain International Airport
Facts on BAH
Bahrain International Airport traces its origins to 1927, when a chartered flight first landed on Muharraq Island, and by the mid-20th century it had grown into the Persian Gulf's oldest international airport.
Source: Wikipedia
The airport takes the country's name, and Bahrain is the Arabic dual form of bahr ('sea'), so al-Bahrayn literally means 'the two seas' — though which two seas is disputed, with candidates including the bay east and west of the island, the seas north and south of it, or the salt water above ground and fresh water that bubbles up from below.
Source: Wikipedia
In 1932 the airport received its first scheduled commercial flight, a Handley Page H.P.42 named Hannibal flying London to Delhi; the aircraft carried only 24 passengers and needed several days of flying at roughly 100 miles per hour.
Source: Wikipedia
During the Second World War the airfield served the US Army Air Forces' Air Transport Command as Station #13, a stopover on the Karachi-Cairo route linking onward to Abadan in Iran and Sharjah in what is now the UAE.
Source: Wikipedia
From 1943 until Bahrain's independence in December 1971, the Royal Air Force ran a military installation at the airfield, known first as RAF Bahrain and from 1963 as RAF Muharraq; most of its facilities later passed to national carrier Gulf Air.
Source: Wikipedia
Bahrain briefly touched supersonic travel: in 1976 British Airways began a regular Concorde service linking London and Bahrain, the same year Pan Am introduced direct Boeing 747SP flights onward to New York.
Source: Wikipedia
A new $1.1 billion, 210,000-square-metre passenger terminal opened on 28 January 2021, lifting the airport's capacity to 14 million passengers and 130,000 air traffic movements a year, with 24 departure gates and 7,000 new parking spaces.
Source: Wikipedia
The airport is a regional hub for DHL Aviation, which runs an integrated air-and-land network of 115 weekly flights and 250 vehicles through Bahrain's 25,000-square-metre cargo terminal.
Source: Wikipedia
In November 2024 Bahrain International became the first airport in the world to achieve the International Air Transport Association's Environmental Assessment Certification, building on the LEED gold certification its passenger terminal earned in 2021.
Source: Wikipedia