St. Barth Airport: Very Small, Very Busy
What St. Barthélemy's airport lacks in size, it makes up for in activity.
Gustav III Airport on St. Barthélemy offers an approach and landing so challenging, pilots must be specially qualified to perform it. In addition to a steep descent between hills, aircraft must come to a stop on the 2,100-foot runway or end up in the waters of the Caribbean. (Photo: Curt Epstein/AIN)
Gustav III Airport on St. Barthélemy offers an approach and landing so challenging, pilots must be specially qualified to perform it. In addition to a steep descent between hills, aircraft must come to a stop on the 2,100-foot runway or end up in the waters of the Caribbean. (Photo: Curt Epstein/AIN)

For one of the smallest airports in the world, Gustav III Airport (TFFJ) on the Caribbean island of St. Barthélemy (AKA St. Barth, or St. Barts), punches way above its weight class in terms of activity. Long a playground for the jet and yacht set, the French overseas collectivity, which has less than 10,000 inhabitants, draws hundreds of thousands of visitors to its exclusive shores each year, most of which arrive by aircraft.

It is an irony that those who fly their private jets to the Caribbean cannot land them at St. Barth due to the airport’s single 2,100-foot long, 60-foot wide runway, which can only accommodate aircraft up to a 19-seat DHC-6 Twin Otter, with the notable exception of a Douglas DC-3 which once successfully landed there years ago.