Nouméa Magenta Airport

Nouméa Magenta Airport (French:l'Aéroport de Nouméa Magenta) (IATA: GEA, ICAO: NWWM) is a domestic airport on the main island of New Caledonia. The airport is 3 km (2 mi) east northeast of the centre of Nouméa, the capital, and approximately 50 km (31 mi) from La Tontouta International Airport. In 2017, 428,679 passengers used the airport.

Air Calédonie has its head office on the airport property.

History

• 1931: First biplane flight on the beach in Magenta, located on the east coast of Nouméa.
• 1934: Creation ofL'Aéro-club Calédonien.
• 1942: Arrival of the Poppy Force, a US Army division commanded by General Alexander Patch, making New Caledonia one of the main Pacific airbases for the US Army. A military airfield is built along the beach in Magenta by Seabees of Naval Construction Battalion 11 on the site of a former racetrack.
• 1956: Opening of the airfield to civilian air traffic, two years after the creation of Transpac, the first domestic New Caledonian airline and forerunner ofAir Calédonie, which has regular flights between Nouméa, the Isle of Pines and the Loyalty Islands.
• 1970s: Construction of the first terminal, with a capacity of 100,000 people.
• 2001: Completion and opening of the new terminal, increasing capacity to over 300,000 people.

Text imported from Wikipedia article "Nouméa Magenta Airport" and modified on July 22, 2019 according to the CC-BY-SA 4.0 International license.