Rebuilt Mosul airport expects first passengers next month

Iraqi prime minister Mohammed Al-Sudani will be among the passengers who will fly into the Northern Mosul airport in June for the first time since the facility was devastated by Daesh militants more than 10 years ago.

The airport is scheduled to be put back in operation next month nearly three years after a project to reconstruct the facility was awarded to French and Saudi companies.

Iraqi officials have not named those companies nor have they disclosed reconstruction costs but the cabinet announced in 2022 that it would allocate $150 million for phase 1 of the project as part of a $5-billion budget for the first stage of rebuilding the devastated city.

“Mosul Airport will be officially inaugurated on June 10… The prime minister will be on the first flight that will land at the airport on that date,” said Mohammed Kakani, head of the security committee in the Council of Nineveh, of which Mosul is the provincial capital.

Kakani, quoted by the local press on Wednesday, said Mosul’s first five-star hotel following the conflict would also be opened on that day to mark the completion of the reconstruction of most of the city’s facilities.

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In 2024, the Transport Ministry said the project to revive the airport comprises the rehabilitation of its 3km runway and the reconstruction of 10 damaged buildings, including the main terminal, the air traffic control tower, fire stations and maintenance and emergency buildings, plus surrounding fences.

Mosul, the largest city in the Northern Nineveh governorate, suffered the heaviest damage in Iraq as a result of the Daesh attack in 2014.

Mosul International Airport was built in 1920 and has an area of around 4 sq km.