Manas International Airport

Manas International Airport is the largest airport in Kyrgyzstan and the principal international gateway to Central Asia's second-most-mountainous country. Serving the capital Bishkek, BSZ handles 33 scheduled routes to 28 nonstop destinations operated by 22 airlines — an extraordinary airline-diversity figure that places BSZ among the most carrier-diverse airports in Central Asia and reflects Kyrgyzstan's bilateral open-skies policy and active role as a transit node on Eurasian labor-migration and cargo corridors. The airport sits at 2,058 ft (628 m) elevation 23 km (14 mi) north of Bishkek. Kyrgyzstan's own national flag carrier Air Manas, plus resident operators Avia Traffic Company and Tez Jet, base their fleets here, and Pegasus Airlines (Istanbul), Turkish Airlines, flydubai, Air Astana, Uzbekistan Airways, China Southern, and several Russian and Kazakh carriers provide international service on a network dominated by routes to Russia, Turkey, the UAE, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Mongolia. Internationally significant through its historical role as the Manas Air Base — the United States operated the Transit Center at Manas adjacent to the civilian airport between 2001 and 2014, supporting Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, before the Kyrgyz government ended the lease in June 2014 and converted the base entirely to civil use. This dual civil-military legacy has left BSZ with a notably large apron, extensive fuel-storage capacity, and operational headroom that continue to support heavy air-cargo operations by Turkish Airlines Cargo, Silk Way West, and other Eurasian freight operators. A new terminal was announced in 2022 under a Chinese-financed upgrade framework with targeted completion in the late 2020s.