Prince Mohammad Bin Abdulaziz Airport

Prince Mohammad Bin Abdulaziz International Airport or Prince Mohammad Airport (alternatively "Mohammed") is a regional airport in the western Saudi city of Medina. Opened in 1974, it handles mostly domestic flights, although it has limited scheduled international services to regional destinations such as Cairo, Damascus, and Istanbul. It also handles charter international flights during the Hajj season.
It is the fourth busiest airport in Saudi Arabia, handling 1,592,000 passengers in 2004, including 378,715 Hajj charter passengers. It handles on average 20-25 flights a day, although this number triples during the Hajj season and school holidays.
As with other regional airports in Saudi Arabia, it is modestly equipped, with a simple single-storey terminal and a small parking apron. It has two runways: a main runway and an angled runway for cross-wind operations. There are plans to upgrade the airport to full international specification to handle the expected increase in passenger traffic to 3 million passengers a year.
thumb|View of chartered airliners in temporary Saudi colours, on Apron on a busy day of the 2008 Haj Season. Also seen, a scheduled Saudi E-70 and Iran Air A300 in the foreground and background respectively.
thumb|View of Apron and International Arrivals Terminal on an early Friday morning during the Hajj Season, November 2008. In sight is a scheduled Turkish Airlines bound for Istanbul, with Haj Chartered Uzbekistan Airways, Sudan Airways, Egypt Air and Saudi Airlines in the back ground. Photo was taken from a Saudi Airlines MD-90 bound for Riyadh. 
==Airlines and destinations==
==Incidents==
On 16 March 2001, the airport was the scene of a bloody end to the hijacking of a Russian-based Vnukovo Airlines Tupolev 154 Jet bound from Istanbul to Moscow carrying 162 passengers. The hijackers apparently Chechen Separatists, had landed at the airport and had demanded additional amount of fuel to fly to Afghanistan. After 18 hours of no negotiations, Saudi Security forces stormed the plane bringing an end to the hijack. There were three fatalities including a hijacker, a Turkish passenger and a Russian Air stewardess.
==See also==
*List of airports in Saudi Arabia
*Transportation in Saudi Arabia
==References==
==External links==
* General Authority of Civil Aviation
* 
Category:Airports in Saudi Arabia
Category:Medina
ar:مطار الأمير محمد بن عبد العزيز الدولي
es:Aeropuerto Príncipe Mohammad Bin Abdulaziz
pl:Port lotniczy Medyna
zh:穆罕默德·本·阿卜杜勒-阿齐兹亲王国际机场