Baghdad airport

Baghdad has two airports. Saddam International Airport, renamed Baghdad International Airport by occupying U.S. forces during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, is Iraq's largest air facility and is located about 10 miles west of Baghdad. An international civilian airport, it lies in a suburb about 10 miles west of Baghdad. There is also Rasheed Airbase to the southwest, served by a main runway measuring 8,300 feet. The following text refers to the civilian airport.

The airport is Iraq's largest air facility and is fit to receive planes of all sizes, yet this airport has been all but deserted since 1991. At that time, the United Nations imposed restrictions on Iraq after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1991. Once the hub for Iraq's international airline, Iraqi Airways, and host to airplanes of a long list of international airlines, this airport has been able to receive only occasional charter flights with medicines.

The No-Fly Zone imposed on Iraq by the United States and Great Britain has also been a problem for this airport, as the zone is the main reason Iraqi Airways has only been able to continue domestic flights for limited periods.

Some airlines have been known to bend the UN's restrictions and operate passenger flights there on occasion, but currently no international airline officially has flights there, and only Iraqi Airways operates occasional domestic flights.

This airport's IATA airport code is SDA.

On August 17, 2000, the airport reopened, albeit marginally. The airport resumed limited service as merely a shadow of its former self.

On April 3, 2003, the airport was occupied by United States forces just prior to the invasion of Baghdad. After taking control of the airport, U.S. forces announced that they had renamed it from "Saddam International Airport" to "Baghdad International Airport".

Given the apparent collapse of the Saddam regime, it appears unlikely that the airport will be renamed back to "Saddam International Airport".