Baghdad International Airport / New Al Muthana Air Base Guide

Baghdad International Airport is Iraq's largest and busiest airport, located 16 kilometres west of the city centre. The current terminal complex opened in 1982 under the name Saddam International Airport and was renamed by Coalition forces in 2003. The airport sits alongside the New Al Muthana Air Base, which remains an active Iraqi Air Force installation.

The airport serves as the primary hub for Iraqi Airways and FlyBaghdad, and hosts a range of international carriers including Turkish Airlines, Emirates, Qatar Airways, and Gulf Air. The three passenger concourses — Nineveh, Babylon, and Samarra — are interconnected, allowing passengers to transfer between them without exiting the secure zone. In 2023 the airport handled more than 6 million passengers, recovering strongly from pandemic lows.

In 2025, the Iraqi government signed an award agreement with a consortium led by Corporación América Airports to operate the airport under a public-private partnership. The deal followed a tender supervised by the International Finance Corporation and is expected to increase annual capacity from around 7.5 million to 15 million passengers through new terminal construction and infrastructure upgrades.