Ramón Villeda Morales International Airport

Ramón Villeda Morales International Airport (Aeropuerto Internacional Ramón Villeda Morales), also known as La Mesa International Airport, is located 11 km southeast of the city of San Pedro Sula, in the Cortés Department of Honduras.

The airport is named after Ramón Villeda Morales (1909–1971), who served as President of Honduras from 1957 to 1963. It is the major and busiest airport in Honduras, handling 1,270,997 passengers in 2023. The airport also reported handling over 20,000 international and domestic flights annually. The airport provides short connections to tourist attractions such as La Ceiba, and the Caribbean beaches of Roatán and Tela.

History
The Ramón Villeda Morales International Airport was inaugurated in February 1965. This was because of the rapid growth of the population, and the difficulty for pilots to land at the old airport located in the Barandillas neighborhood in San Pedro Sula. In addition, a modernization of the air service was being carried out, and a new airport was necessary since the old airport only had a dirt runway and a small house that served as a terminal.

In 1997, the current passenger terminal was inaugurated, built in a new location to the old one inaugurated in 1965. The airport was damaged in 1997 by Hurricane Mitch.

In 2013, a remodeling of the passenger terminal began to improve the facilities and infrastructure of the airport. Air Europa started a route to Madrid using Airbus A330s in April 2017. This was Honduras's first direct link to Europe. The airport was damaged in 2020 by Hurricane Eta and Hurricane Iota, which submerged the airport, causing humanitarian flights to the country to be delayed. In August 2023, SAN (Servicio Aeroportuario Nacional) started a large remodeling of the airport. The project will cost $15 million (370 million lempiras) and will include new additions such as an additional gate, and many parts of the airport will get expanded.

Facilities
The airport is at an elevation of 92 ft above mean sea level. It has one runway with a concrete surface measuring 2886 x.

The airport relies with 2 terminals integrated in the same building: A and B. The terminal has 4 gates and 3 Jet bridges. There’s a single immigration office, security cameras and a parking lot with a cost of $1 per hour.

Cargo
Several other airlines like Cargojet Airways and AeroUnion also operate flights out of San Pedro Sula to some Central American cities and the United States.