Ramon International Airport Guide

Ramon International Airport opened on 21 January 2019 in the Timna Valley of southern Israel, built by the Israel Airports Authority as a purpose-made replacement for the old Eilat Airport and the military field at Ovda. Its single runway runs 3,600 metres, nearly double the length of the runway it replaced, letting wide-bodied aircraft land and giving Ben Gurion Airport a southern diversion option. A perimeter fence roughly 26 metres tall and 4.5 kilometres long runs along the airport's stretch of the border with Jordan, built to shield parked aircraft from anti-tank missile fire.

The airport has carried international traffic since 2019, when Ryanair, Wizz Air, Lufthansa and other European carriers added seasonal routes alongside Arkia's year-round Tel Aviv and Paris-Charles de Gaulle service and Israir's and Air Haifa's domestic flights. Regional security disruptions through 2026, including an Israeli airspace closure and a Houthi drone strike on the terminal in September 2025, pushed most international carriers to suspend their Eilat routes; Wizz Air's planned Budapest service, announced for a March 2026 launch alongside a new Ramon base, had not started as of this writing.

The terminal sits well outside Eilat itself, so arriving passengers depend on a shuttle bus or taxi rather than a short walk into town, a trade-off made for the longer runway and open desert setting the site allowed.