Damascus International Airport

Damascus International Airport is Syria's largest airport and the principal international gateway to the country, serving the capital 25 km (16 mi) southeast of the old city. The airport handles 38 scheduled routes to 21 nonstop destinations operated by 16 airlines — a notable rebound in airline count after more than a decade of civil conflict during which most foreign carriers suspended service. DAM is again receiving flights from Emirates, Qatar Airways, Turkish Airlines, Royal Jordanian, MEA, Iraqi Airways, and regional Iranian and Gulf operators. The airport operates a single 11,811 ft (3,600 m) lighted asphalt runway 05R/23L at 2,020 ft (616 m) elevation on the basalt plateau southeast of Damascus. A parallel second strip and taxiway network support civil, military, and VIP operations. DAM is the home base of Syrian Air (Syrian Arab Airlines), the national carrier whose fleet and network were severely constrained by Western sanctions from 2011 onwards and which is now gradually recovering service to Baghdad, Tehran, Muscat, Sharjah, Kuwait, and Khartoum. Internationally significant through its symbolic and operational role: Damascus is one of the oldest continuously inhabited capital cities in the world, and the reopening of normalized international aviation to DAM tracks Syria's re-entry into the Arab League (readmitted in May 2023) and the subsequent restoration of bilateral diplomatic and commercial relations across the region. The airport sustained repeated strike damage during the 2011–2024 conflict and runway repairs have been ongoing; EU and U.S. sanctions still restrict aircraft maintenance parts, and European carriers have not yet resumed scheduled service. The airport is a designated flight-information-region boundary handoff for Amman and Beirut ATC.