Princess Juliana International Airport

Princess Juliana International Airport is the main airport on the Caribbean island of Saint Martin/Sint Maarten. The airport is located on the Dutch side of the island, in the country of Sint Maarten. In 2015, the airport handled 1,829,543 passengers and around 60,000 aircraft movements. The airport serves as a hub for Windward Islands Airways and is the major gateway for the smaller Leeward Islands, including Anguilla, Saba, St. Barthélemy and St. Eustatius. It is named after Queen Juliana, who landed here while still only heir presumptive in 1944, the year after the airport opened. The airport has very low-altitude flyover landing approaches because one end of its runway is extremely close to the shore and Maho Beach. There is also an airport on the French side of the island, in the French Collectivity of Saint Martin, called Aéroport de Grand Case or L'Espérance Airport.

The airport began as a US military airstrip in 1942 during World War II. The following year, first commercial flight landed on 3 December 1943. The future Queen Juliana visited the island using the airport in 1944. Eventually, the airport was named after her. In 1964 the airport was remodeled and relocated, with a new terminal building and control tower. The facilities were upgraded in 1985 and 2001.

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