Borg El Arab International Airport

Alexandria International Airport (IATA: ALY, ICAO: HEAX), formerly Borg El Arab International Airport, is an international airport of Alexandria, Egypt. It is located about 40 km (25 mi) southwest of Alexandria, in Borg El Arab. The airport also serves the nearby areas of the Nile Delta.

Alexandria International Airport مطار الإسكندرية الدولي
IATA: ALY ICAO: HEAX
Summary
Airport type	Public
Owner/Operator	Egyptian Airports Company (EAC)
Serves	Alexandria Nile Delta
Location	Amreya
Opened	February 2010; 15 years ago (2010-02)
Focus city for	EgyptAir
Operating base for	Air Arabia Egypt
Elevation AMSL	54 m / 177 ft
Coordinates	30°55′04″N 29°41′47″E
Maps
ALY/HEAX Location of airport in Egypt
Runways
Direction Length Surface m ft 14L/32R 3,400 11,156 Asphalt 14R/32L 3,400 11,156 Asphalt
Source: DAFIF[1][2]

In August 2025 the governorate of Alexandria, in coordination with the Ministry of Civil Aviation, announced that the airport would be renamed Alexandria International Airport, from Borg El Arab International Airport. The change is scheduled to take effect on 4 September 2025 and includes updating the airport’s International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) code from HEBA to HEAX.^[3]

History

In June 2009 the government announced plans for a 390-acre (1.6 km²) urban expansion to the west of Alexandria, later referred to as New Alexandria. The project was planned to be connected to Borg El Arab International Airport by a ring road, with an estimated travel time of 25 minutes. Around the same period, President Hosni Mubarak inaugurated Borg El Arab International Airport itself as part of a broader program to build new airports and modernize existing ones. The airport underwent a major expansion to increase passenger and cargo capacity, with the upgraded facilities inaugurated in February 2010.

The original terminal has a capacity to handle 1.2 million passengers per year, and become an adequate replacement to the then-larger El Nouzha Airport, which shut down in summer 2010; at the time, that airport's facilities were planned to be overhauled. The project was later abandoned. With Borg El Arab Airport assuming the region’s air traffic, El Nouzha remained closed and has since fallen into disuse, with no announced plans for reopening or redevelopment.^{[citation needed]}

The Egyptian Holding Company for Airports announced plans in 2016 to construct a new terminal at Borg El Arab Airport in Alexandria, with funding from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation. The facility is designed to handle 4 million passengers annually, which will raise the airport’s total capacity to 5.6 million passengers once completed.^[4] The new terminal 2 opened in 2024.

Terminal 1

Departures area

Check-in hall

Terminal 1 was opened in February 2010, and consists of a new passenger building and an administration building. The passenger terminal is designed in the shape of a boat and consists of three floors:

• Ground floor: allocated for checking in and luggage handling.
• Second floor: allocated for arrivals, both domestic and international, in addition to administrative offices and airlines offices.
• Third floor: allocated for departures, both domestic and international, immigration procedures and a VIP hall. Commercial activities are spread among the three floors.
• Four movable boarding bridges connect the terminal building to aircraft.

The terminal contains a duty-free shop, a franchise food court, an area dedicated for travel offices and other travel-related services, a fuel supply unit, a control tower, and a fire station available to cover emergencies on site. A parking area in front of the building provides space for 350 vehicles.

Airlines and destinations

Airlines	Destinations
Aegean Airlines	Seasonal: Athens[5]
Afriqiyah Airways[6]	Benghazi, Misrata, Tripoli–Mitiga
Air Arabia	Abu Dhabi, Amman–Queen Alia, Dammam, Jeddah, Riyadh, Sharjah, Ta'if[7][better source needed] Seasonal: Bergamo
Air Cairo	Amman–Queen Alia,[8] Doha, Jeddah,[9] Kuwait City Seasonal: Casablanca,[10] Sharjah,[11] Sharm El Sheikh[12]
Alexandria Airlines[13]	Kuwait City[citation needed]
Egyptair	Cairo[citation needed], Dammam,[14] Dubai–International,[15] Jeddah,[14] Kuwait City, Medina, Riyadh Seasonal: Hurghada, Sharm El Sheikh
Flyadeal	Jeddah[16]
Flydubai	Dubai–International
Jazeera Airways	Kuwait City
Libyan Airlines[17]	Benghazi, Tripoli–Mitiga
Pegasus Airlines	Istanbul–Sabiha Gökçen[18]
Petroleum Air Services	Charter: Cairo
Qatar Airways	Doha[19]
Salam Air	Muscat
Saudia	Jeddah,[20] Medina, Riyadh[20]
Turkish Airlines	Istanbul[21]
Wizz Air	Abu Dhabi (ends 31 August 2025)[22]

See also

• List of airports in Egypt
• El Nouzha Airport
• Transportation in Alexandria
• List of the busiest airports in the Middle East