Lifuka Island Airport
Channel: all the knowledge of the universe PRINCIPIA
Date: 2022-01-07

Lifuka Island Airport, by Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=10027161 / CC BY SA 3.0

#Airports_in_Tonga
#Haʻapai
Lifuka Island Airport （IATA: HPA, ICAO: NFTL）, also known as Salote Pilolevu Airport or Haʻapai Airport, is an airport on Lifuka in Tonga.
The airport is located 5 km （3.1 mi） north of the capital Panga, and is only served domestically, roughly 40 minutes by flight to Tongatapu and 30 minutes to Vava'u.
Taxis serve the airport, and services include a cafe inside the terminal.
One of the airport's most unique features is the dirt road intersecting the runway.
Gates staffed by airport employees are used to prevent access during aircraft operation, the rest of the airport otherwise secured with barbed wire fencing.
There is no aviation fuel or refuelling service for aircraft available at the airport.
Royal Tongan Airlines commenced operations to Ha'apai in the mid 1980s with CASA 212 aircraft.
Around this time the airfield was improved, allowing Twin Otter operations to commence.
HS 748 operations followed this before the Short 360 began services on the route, flying to Ha'apai until the airline's collapse.
Following the collapse of Royal Tongan Airlines, Peau Vava'u was formed on the 27th of May 2004 as Tonga's first domestic-only airline, and remained the only airline in Tonga for a short period of time as a one-airline policy was imposed.
This policy was revoked in 2005, the second domestic operating license being taken up by Airlines Tonga later that year.
Peau Vava'u operated flights to Ha'apai with leased DC-3s in June 2004, with Convair CV-580 flights commencing in May 2005 subleased from Reef Air and Air Chathams.
Air Fiji formed Airlines Tonga in December 2005 as a joint venture with Tongan travel agency Teta Tours.
The airline was created to provide domestic services to Tonga, Ha'apai among the destinations.
Air Fiji chartered New Zealand operator Air Chathams to fly services in July 2006 for Airlines Tonga with Convair CV-580 aircraft ...