Major Airports in Cyprus

Key Takeaways

Larnaca is the main international gateway. Larnaca International (LCA) serves around 80 regularly-served nonstop destinations, well ahead of Paphos. It is the home base of the relaunched flag carrier Cyprus Airways and a busy base for low-cost airlines such as Wizz Air, easyJet, Jet2 and Aegean, handling most of the island’s scheduled and long-haul connecting traffic.
Paphos is the western leisure airport. Paphos International (PFO) on the south-west coast reaches about 56 regularly-served destinations, dominated by holiday routes. Ryanair, Jet2, TUI, easyJet and British Airways fly UK and European tourists in, alongside a steady stream of flights to and from Israel.
Ercan, in the north, is served only from Turkey. Ercan (ECN) sits in the northern part of the island, under Turkish Cypriot administration. It is recognised as an airport only by Turkey, is not an internationally recognised port of entry, and its roughly 11 routes all run to and from Turkish cities such as Istanbul, Izmir and Antalya.
We rank by regularly-served routes, not raw counts. The figures come from observed route data, a sample rather than a full timetable. Ranking by regularly-served destinations (routes flown often enough to count as scheduled service) gives a truer picture than raw nonstop totals, which overstate the seasonal, charter-heavy summer traffic.
There are no direct flights to the United States. Cyprus has no scheduled nonstop service to North America. Travellers connect through a European hub such as Athens, London, Frankfurt or Vienna, or through a Gulf hub such as Doha or Dubai on Qatar Airways, Emirates or Etihad.

Cyprus runs a compact, tourism-driven aviation network. The internationally recognised Republic of Cyprus, in the south, is served by two airports: Larnaca, the main hub on the south-east coast, and Paphos, a smaller leisure airport in the west. Both lean heavily on summer holiday traffic from the UK, central Europe and Israel, and both have grown around low-cost carriers and the relaunched flag carrier, Cyprus Airways. The island has no domestic flights: everywhere is within an easy drive, so every route is international. A third airport, Ercan, lies in the Turkish-administered north and operates on a completely separate network flown only from Turkey.

Below we map and rank Cyprus’s airports by the number of nonstop destinations each one serves, drawn from live route data on AirportRoutes. We rank by regularly-served destinations, routes flown often enough to count as scheduled service, rather than raw nonstop totals, which can overstate the seasonal, charter-heavy summer surge. The figures come from observed flight data (a large sample rather than a complete published timetable), so treat them as a guide to relative connectivity, not official totals.

Map of major airports in Cyprus ranked by regularly-served nonstop destinations, led by Larnaca, Paphos and Ercan — Cyprus’s major airports, ranked by regularly-served nonstop destinations. Map: Mappr · Data: AirportRoutes

Can you fly nonstop from Cyprus to the US?

No. Neither Larnaca nor Paphos has a scheduled nonstop flight to the United States, and there has never been a sustained direct route between Cyprus and North America. Cyprus sits at the eastern edge of the Mediterranean, a long way from the US east coast, and its traffic is overwhelmingly short and medium-haul leisure, so a transatlantic route has never had the year-round demand to stick. Talks about a direct US link surface from time to time, but as of 2026 none operate.

Travellers heading to the US connect through a hub. The most common options are a one-stop connection through a major European gateway such as Athens, London, Frankfurt, Paris or Vienna, or through a Gulf hub such as Doha, Dubai or Abu Dhabi on Qatar Airways, Emirates or Etihad, which all serve Larnaca and offer wide North American coverage. Aegean’s frequent Larnaca to Athens shuttle feeds onward transatlantic flights, and Cyprus Airways links the island to a spread of European cities where US connections are available.

Ranked

Major Airports in Cyprus by Nonstop Destinations

Ranked by regularly-served nonstop destinations, busiest first.

Airport	IATA	Nonstop	Region
1. Larnaca	LCA	80	Larnaca (main hub)
2. Paphos	PFO	56	Paphos (west coast)
3. Nicosia (Ercan)	ECN	11	Northern Cyprus

A closer look at Cyprus’s airports

✈️ Larnaca International Airport (LCA)

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Larnaca International lies on the south-east coast, a few kilometres south-west of Larnaca city, and is by far the busiest airport in Cyprus. It took over as the island’s primary gateway after the old Nicosia airport closed in 1974, and today it handles the bulk of scheduled, business and connecting traffic. It is the home base of the relaunched flag carrier Cyprus Airways and a major base for low-cost airlines.

Serving the capital region and the south of the island, LCA reaches around 80 regularly-served nonstop destinations, an international network that dwarfs every other Cypriot airport. Its busiest links run to Athens, the Israeli cities of Tel Aviv and Haifa, London, Frankfurt and Thessaloniki, and it is the airport where the Gulf carriers Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad connect Cyprus to their long-haul hubs. Yerevan, the Gulf and a wide spread of European cities round out the map.

Main airlines: Wizz Air, easyJet, Cyprus Airways, Jet2, TUI Airways, Aegean Airlines. See the full route map on AirportRoutes →

🏖️ Paphos International Airport (PFO)

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Paphos International sits on the south-west coast, a short drive from the resort town of Paphos, and is the island’s second airport. It is overwhelmingly a holiday airport, serving the beach resorts and archaeological sites of the west, and its traffic peaks sharply over the summer season before easing back in winter. For visitors to the western half of Cyprus it is far more convenient than Larnaca.

Serving Paphos and the west of the island, PFO reaches about 56 regularly-served nonstop destinations. The network is dominated by low-cost and charter routes to the UK, including the London airports, alongside a strong band of flights to Israel at Tel Aviv and Haifa, plus Athens, Thessaloniki, Budapest and a string of other European cities. British Airways and the big low-cost carriers carry most of the load.

Main airlines: Ryanair, TUI Airways, Jet2, easyJet, British Airways. See the full route map on AirportRoutes →

🛬 Ercan Airport (ECN)

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Ercan lies east of Nicosia, in the part of the island that has been under Turkish Cypriot administration since 1974 and is governed by the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, an entity recognised only by Turkey. Because of that status, Ercan is not an internationally recognised port of entry. The Republic of Cyprus and the European Union treat it as a closed airport, and international aviation bodies do not list it, so flights cannot operate to it from anywhere except Turkey.

The practical result is a network that points in a single direction. Ercan’s roughly 11 regularly-served routes all run to and from Turkey, with the busiest links to Istanbul (both the main airport and Sabiha Gokcen), Izmir, Ankara and Antalya. Passengers travelling from elsewhere reach Ercan by connecting through a Turkish airport. A new and much larger terminal opened in 2024, signalling the north’s ambition to grow the airport even as its international recognition remains unresolved.

Main airlines: Pegasus Airlines, Turkish Airlines, AJet, SunExpress. See the full route map on AirportRoutes →

What about the old Nicosia airport?

Cyprus once had a single national airport at Nicosia, the capital. Nicosia International Airport was the island’s main gateway until 1974, when it was caught in the middle of the island’s division and forced to close. It has sat abandoned ever since, inside the United Nations buffer zone that runs across the island, its derelict terminal and a decaying aircraft preserved as one of the more haunting relics of the conflict. Its closure is the reason Cyprus built up Larnaca and Paphos as replacements, and why the capital itself has no working airport today.

Airport rankings, nonstop-destination counts, served regions and airline lists are drawn from live AirportRoutes route data (observed AeroAPI flight data, a sample rather than a complete published schedule; we use the regularly-served figure, which filters one-off observations). Airport locations and notable facts are cross-checked against the cited references. The ranked map is a Mappr original.

Primary Data Source: