Paphos Airport

If you vacation in western Cyprus, you almost always land here. Paphos Airport is smaller and quieter than Larnaca, but it has its own character: the runway lies right on the coast, traffic is determined by leisure and low-cost airlines, and a Cypriot National Guard military base sits on the same site. For spotters that means lots of British holiday jets, a Ryanair base, connections to Israel and Greece – and a few rules you have to take as seriously here as at hardly any other leisure airport.

Cyprus’s second gateway

Until 1974, the island’s air traffic ran through Nicosia. After the Turkish invasion the capital’s airport had to close; to this day it lies in the United Nations buffer zone. As a replacement, Larnaca on the south coast was expanded in great haste at first. That left the west of the island, with Paphos and its hinterland, far from the nearest airport.

Paphos Airport closed this gap in 1982. It lies on the southwest coast between the villages of Timi and Acheleia, about six and a half kilometers southeast of the town, and serves not only Paphos but also the Limassol region, which is a good 60 kilometers away by road. Over the years the second gateway has become a classic leisure airport – with a strong summer and a much quieter winter.

The spelling occasionally causes confusion. The operator uses the transliteration Pafos; in English Paphos is common. The same airport with the code PFO is always meant.

Hermes Airports: one operator for two airports

Since May 2006, Hermes Airports Ltd has run Paphos and Larnaca together. The basis is a 25-year concession with the Republic of Cyprus: the consortium builds and finances new facilities, operates the airports for the term and then hands them back to the state, which remains the owner. Hermes is backed by international construction and airport companies as well as Cypriot partners.

The most visible result in Paphos is the passenger terminal, which opened in November 2008 – a year before the new terminal in Larnaca. Older figures give the airport 28 check-in desks, seven gates and 22 parking positions; with the ongoing expansion these values are changing.

Because Paphos is growing to its limits. In March 2025, Hermes closed the financing for the second development phase of both airports. For Paphos, according to the operator, it includes an expansion of the terminal by about 30 percent and an additional section of the southern parallel taxiway, all within the existing grounds. Once completed, the airport is to handle about five million passengers a year. The sources give different dates for when everything will be finished – expect construction sites around the terminal and apron during your visit.

One runway on the coast

The layout is simple. Paphos has a single runway, 11/29, running west-northwest to east-southeast, almost parallel to the coastline. It is about 2,700 meters long and lies only about twelve meters above sea level. The Mediterranean begins south of the runway; to the north lie fields and the villages of the hinterland.

The taxiway that was once a runway

A peculiarity of Paphos is the parallel taxiway Bravo. It used to be listed as a second runway, 11L/29R, and from the air it looks confusingly like a runway. That is exactly what happened on September 21, 2011: a Thomson Airways Boeing 737-800 landed on the taxiway by mistake instead of the runway. Because no other aircraft happened to be there, the incident ended without harm, and the aircraft taxied normally to the apron. In the following years pilots were alerted to the risk of confusion by notice, and by 2014 at the latest, large yellow “TAXI” markings stood on the taxiway.

Runway direction in use: 29 or 11?

As everywhere, aircraft take off and land into the wind. With wind from westerly directions, operations run on 29 – aircraft then come in from east-southeast along the coast and take off toward west-northwest, that is, toward the town of Paphos. With wind from easterly directions, 11 is in use, and the picture reverses.

At an airport with only one runway, the runway direction in use decides at which end you see landings up close. So check in a flight tracker before setting out which direction the aircraft are currently coming from – the article on flight tracking with ADS-B explains that. How wind and runway choice relate is covered in Understanding the runway direction in use at airports.

Civil and military on the same site

Paphos is a jointly civil and military airport. The Andreas Papandreou air base of the Cypriot National Guard, named after the former Greek prime minister, lies in the northeast section of the grounds. The base is considered one of the southeasternmost military airfields of the European Union and also serves other states as a safe base for humanitarian missions and emergency operations.

For you as a spotter that has a clear consequence: the military section is not a photo subject. Cyprus is sensitive about military installations, and signs at such areas often explicitly point out photo bans. Concentrate on civil traffic, don’t aim the camera deliberately at military installations or aircraft on the ground and follow every instruction from police and military. The article Photographing at military airfields sums up what applies at military airfields in general.

Ryanair and the British leisure flyers

Ryanair has had a base in Paphos since 2012. At the start the airline based two aircraft and opened 15 new routes; in 2018, according to Hermes Airports, a third based aircraft was added. How many aircraft overnight on site today changes with every schedule. For spotters that means above all: the Boeing 737-800 and the 737 MAX 8 of the Ryanair group are part of everyday life at the airport. More on the group behind it is on the page for Ryanair Holdings.

Even more than Ryanair, Great Britain as a whole shapes the picture. Among the ten strongest routes of 2024, six were British destinations: London Gatwick at the top, plus Manchester, London Stansted, Birmingham, Bristol and Newcastle. Accordingly, you often see jets of Jet2, TUI Airways, easyJet and British Airways. The close connection has a tradition: Cyprus was a British colony until 1960, and to this day many Britons spend their vacation or retirement in the west of the island.

The airline mix: Great Britain, Israel, Greece

Besides the British market there are two more strong pillars. Israel is only a short flight away, and Tel Aviv ranked fourth among the strongest routes from Paphos in 2024. This is where Israeli airlines such as Israir and Arkia come in. Greece is represented in the top ten with Thessaloniki and Athens; besides Aegean Airlines, other Greek companies show up here too.

From central and eastern Europe, Wizz Air, LOT Polish Airlines and Transavia, among others, fly in; Vienna was also among the ten most important destinations in 2024. Many of these connections operate only in the summer season, and the offering changes from year to year. Anyone looking specifically for a particular airline should therefore always check the current schedule.

Widebody aircraft are the big exception in Paphos. Traffic consists almost entirely of narrowbody jets: the A320, its successors the A320neo and A321neo, and the 737 in its various generations. That is exactly why it pays to look at the registration – with many identical-looking Ryanair jets it is the only way to tell your sightings apart. The article Understanding aircraft registrations explains how the letter and number sequences are built.

Traffic: steadily upward

Paphos is number two in Cyprus after Larnaca, but grows reliably. In 2019 the airport counted about three million passengers; in the pandemic year 2020 there were only just over 630,000. After that it went quickly up again: by 2022 the pre-crisis level had been exceeded, and in 2025 Paphos set a new record with about 3.84 million passengers. In August 2025, more than half a million passengers came together in a single month for the first time.

Cargo, by contrast, plays hardly any role: in 2025 only about 80 tonnes were handled – a fraction of what goes through Larnaca. In 2026 Paphos proved comparatively robust. When the unrest in the Middle East dampened traffic in Cyprus as a whole in spring, it hit mainly Larnaca, while Paphos, according to the figures published up to late summer, held up much better. One obvious reason is the airline mix: the airport depends more on European vacationers than on connections within the region.

Spotting in Paphos: what you should know

We don’t know of an official observation deck or designated spotter area in Paphos. Spotters move to publicly accessible places outside the grounds. Because the runway lies parallel to the coast, the south side with the sea in the background offers attractive perspectives – though with backlight around midday. From the landward side in the north the light is more favorable during the day, but there you have to take special care not to get too close to the military area.

The time of day plays a big role. In summer the air above the hot asphalt shimmers as early as the morning, and long focal lengths across the runway then quickly deliver soft pictures. You usually have better conditions in the early morning and late afternoon. How to deal with the shimmer is explained in the article Avoiding heat haze; what to pack for yourself on hot days is in the article Plane spotting in summer.

Since most spotters visit Paphos on vacation, the article Plane spotting on vacation helps you plan. How to get your camera safely into your carry-on is covered in the article on camera gear in carry-on luggage.

Getting there

A four-lane road now connects the airport with Paphos and bypasses the country roads that used to be often clogged. There is a regular bus connection from the bus station at the harbor of Paphos, plus individual trips into town and to Polis as well as direct buses to Limassol, Nicosia and Larnaca. If you want to try different locations around the runway, you are more flexible with a rental car – but remember to park only legally and without causing obstruction.

Paphos compared

Within Cyprus, Larnaca Airport is the big brother. It has more than twice as many passengers, is home to the new Cyprus Airways and offers a much broader mix with airlines from the Middle East and the Gulf. Paphos, by contrast, is the classic vacationer airport. If your hotel is in the east of the island, a side trip to Mackenzie Beach in Larnaca is worthwhile, where landings come in right over the beach.

Through its routes, Paphos is closely linked to other airports you may already know or plan as your next destination. London Gatwick, Manchester and London Stansted are the strongest connections; for London Gatwick Airport there is also a dedicated spotter guide. In the eastern Mediterranean lie Tel Aviv Ben Gurion Airport, Thessaloniki Airport and Athens Airport. If you like island airports, you’ll find related destinations in Rhodes and Malta. How to build a trip out of this is covered in the article Planning a spotting vacation.

Conclusion

Paphos Airport is Cyprus’s western gateway and a leisure airport through and through. A single runway of about 2,700 meters right on the coast, a 2008 terminal that is currently being expanded, and a record of 3.84 million passengers in 2025 describe an airport that keeps growing without becoming hard to follow.

For spotters the appeal lies in the leisure and low-cost jets from Great Britain, Ireland, Israel, Greece and central Europe – and in shots with the sea in the background. The military base on the same site demands extra care. If you keep an eye on runway direction in use, light and heat, stay on public land and respect photo bans, you take more home from your vacation in western Cyprus than just beach photos.