Sharjah International Airport

Sharjah International is the third-busiest airport in the United Arab Emirates and the founding hub of Air Arabia — the Middle East's first and largest low-cost carrier — ranked by BigAirports as the defining LCC gateway of the Arabian Peninsula. Located 13 km southeast of central Sharjah and 27 km from downtown Dubai at 111 ft (34 m) elevation, SHJ handles roughly 15M passengers annually from a single passenger terminal that has been progressively expanded to 100,000 square meters with 65 check-in counters and 27 boarding gates. A single 13,320 ft (4,060 m) asphalt runway (12/30) serves the full operation, dimensioned for fully loaded wide-body and long-range narrow-body departures in hot-and-high conditions. Air Arabia, headquartered at SHJ, operates a pan-regional point-to-point network built on an Airbus A320/A321neo/A321LR fleet that connects secondary Middle Eastern, South Asian, Central Asian, North African, East African and European cities that do not support full-service long-haul service. The airline pioneered the LCC model in the Arab world and its Sharjah base functions as the network's single most important node. SHJ's 153 routes to 116 destinations across 26 airlines gives it one of the highest destination-per-route ratios among mid-sized airports globally — a product of thin-route LCC economics. The network reaches Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Armenia, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Morocco, Russia, Turkey and much of the EU. Alongside Air Arabia, Flydubai, SalamAir, Jazeera, IndiGo, Pakistan International and others operate scheduled service. SHJ is also the home base of a substantial cargo operation and a key secondary alternative to DXB for northern-emirates residents and cost-sensitive travelers from Dubai.