Christmas Island Airfield
| Cassidy International Airport | |||||||||||
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| Summary | |||||||||||
| Airport type | Public | ||||||||||
| Operator | Government | ||||||||||
| Serves | Kiritimati | ||||||||||
| Location | Banana | ||||||||||
| Elevation AMSL | 5 ft / 2 m | ||||||||||
| Coordinates | 01°59′10″N 157°20′59″W / 1.98611°N 157.34972°WCoordinates: 01°59′10″N 157°20′59″W / 1.98611°N 157.34972°W | ||||||||||
| Map | |||||||||||
 CXI
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| Runways | |||||||||||
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Source: DAFIF
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Cassidy International Airport (IATA: CXI, ICAO: PLCH) is an airport located north of Banana, a settlement on Kiritimati (also known as Christmas Island) in Kiribati. It is the only airport in the Kiribati part of the Line Islands with an IATA and/or ICAO code.
The airport is served by Fiji Airways from Nadi, Fiji and Honolulu, United States. Since neither Air Kiribati nor Coral Sun Airways owns aircraft capable of flying between Kiritimati and the Gilbert Islands, where all other operational airports in Kiribati are located, there are no domestic flights to or from Kiritimati. However, Coral Sun Airways declares on its website the company is considering to purchase one larger aircraft, capable of flying to the Line Islands and the Phoenix Islands.
During World War II, the United States Army Air Forces Air Transport Command used the airport as a refuelling stop on its Pacific transport route from Hawaii to Kanton Island for flights to Australia and New Zealand as well as a staging point for attacks on the Gilbert Islands, then occupied by Japan. The airport was expanded considerably during the war, and the World War II runway configuration can still be seen as abandoned runways and aircraft parking areas in aerial photography.
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