# Honiara International Airport (HIR)

> Honiara, SB · IATA: HIR · ICAO: AGGH · Large Airport · Cargo Hub

## Quick Facts

| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| IATA | `HIR` |
| ICAO | `AGGH` |
| City | Honiara |
| Country | SB |
| Type | Large Airport |
| Elevation | 9 m |
| Cargo | ✅ |
| GPS | -9.42800, 160.05499 |

## Description

Just 428 tonnes — that was the combined air freight handled across all Solomon Islands airports in pandemic-hit 2020, down from about 835 tonnes a year earlier, a scale that frames Honiara International (HIR) honestly. The country's main international airport sits on Guadalcanal east of the capital, with Munda Airport as its alternate, and traces its origins to wartime Henderson Field. Solomon Airlines bases itself here, joined by Qantas, Air Niugini, Fiji Airways and, more recently, China Southern on routes to Brisbane, Port Moresby, Nadi and Guangzhou. Cargo moves mainly as belly freight on these services, supported by a dedicated apron-side cargo area with a bonded warehouse and basic handling gear run by Solomon Airlines. The runway surface and lighting were resurfaced in 2025, and a roughly USD 50 million runway-extension and terminal-upgrade project, partly World Bank-backed, is now in the planning stage with a target completion around 2028. The islands' marquee exports — tuna from one of the Pacific's richest fishing zones, plus tropical timber and palm oil — travel largely by sea rather than air. For forwarders, HIR is a dependable but capacity-limited point of entry, with Brisbane the nearest major cargo gateway.

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*Freight Academy — Airport Profile: [https://www.freight-academy.com/en/information/airports/honiara-international-airport-hir](https://www.freight-academy.com/en/information/airports/honiara-international-airport-hir)*

*Markdown mirror: [https://www.freight-academy.com/api/md/airports/en/honiara-international-airport-hir](https://www.freight-academy.com/api/md/airports/en/honiara-international-airport-hir)*

*LLM-Summary (JSON): https://www.freight-academy.com/api/v1/airports/honiara-international-airport-hir/llm-summary*