Aden Adde International Airport, Mogadishu (MGQ)

At a glance

• Codes: IATA MGQ, ICAO HCMM (OurAirports, HCMM).
• Runway: one asphalt runway, 05/23, 10,446 feet (about 3,184 metres) long; the field sits about 29 feet (9 metres) above sea level (OurAirports, HCMM).
• Named after: Aden Abdulle Osman, Somalia's first president. The Transitional Federal Government announced the new name on 8 June 2007, the day he died (Wikipedia, Aden Adde International Airport).
• Regulator: the Somali Civil Aviation Authority (SCAA) under the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation.

Italian beginnings, 1928 to 1960

The airport was set up in 1928 as Aeroporto di Mogadiscio-Petrella, a military field for Italian Somaliland (Wikipedia). Civilian flights began in the mid-1930s. In 1935 Ala Littoria opened an Asmara–Assab–Mogadishu route flown by a Caproni 133 carrying up to 18 passengers, and in 1936 a four-day service ran Mogadishu–Asmara–Khartoum–Tripoli–Rome (same source, citing Il Postalista).

The Republic, 1960 to 1991

After independence the airport was enlarged in the mid-1960s, and the state carrier Somali Airlines, founded in 1964, flew from it to the main Somali cities. By 1969 it could take small jets and DC-6B aircraft (Wikipedia). In the 1970s Soviet engineers expanded it for both civil and military use, and the Somali Air Corps kept an airlift wing and its academy there; see Somali Air Force. In the 1980s the United States Navy helped lengthen and modernise the field, and the Somali Civil Aviation Authority signed a contract worth about 17 billion lire (about $8.5 million) with the Italian firm Selenia for a second terminal, a new control tower and air traffic equipment (same source). Work stopped when the government fell in January 1991.

War years, 1991 to 2011

During the civil war the airport was closed or disrupted for long periods and damaged (Wikipedia). On 3 August 2006 African Express Airways became the first international airline to resume regular flights to it (same source). From 2007, with fighting in the city, most civilian aircraft used the K50 airstrip about 50 km away in Lower Shabelle instead. In late 2010 the Transitional Federal Government gave the Dubai firm SKA Air and Logistics a ten-year contract to run screening, passenger security and the terminals (Arabian Business).

Since 2012

On 20 August 2012 many members of the new Federal Parliament were sworn in at the airport (AllAfrica, August 2012). In 2013 the International Civil Aviation Organization took the airport off its "Zone 5" list of high-risk airports (Wikipedia).

SKA's first work, worth about $6 million, brought new equipment, 200 trained local staff, steady electricity, rebuilt baggage halls and lounges, electronic check-in and internet links for civil aviation, immigration, customs and police offices; by January 2013 it ran shuttle buses to the terminal (Wikipedia). In January 2013 a new immigration building, paid for by Japan through the International Organization for Migration, opened; IOM trained 84 officers and installed its Personal Registration and Identification System at the airport and the seaport (same source).

Turkey announced plans to modernise the airport in December 2011. The Turkish company Favori LLC began operating there in September 2013 with a $10 million plan to raise aircraft parking from 15 to 60 (Wikipedia). In April 2014 Prime Minister Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed laid the foundation stone of a national Aviation Training Academy at the airport (RaxanReeb, April 2014). In January 2015 Presidents Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan opened a new terminal built by the Turkish firm Kozuva, sized for 60 daily flights and 1,000 passengers an hour (Wikipedia).

Traffic and airlines

Daily flights rose from about 3 in 2011 to more than 40 by November 2014, and Favori counted 439,879 domestic and international passengers in 2014, up 319,925 on 2013 (Wikipedia). In mid-2014 the largest users were Daallo Airlines, Jubba Airways, African Express Airways, United Nations charters and Turkish Airlines (same source); Ethiopian Airlines added Mogadishu in November 2018 (Routes Online). Somali carriers listed on Airlines in Somalia fly from it to other Somali cities such as Baidoa, Galkayo, Berbera and Hargeisa, and abroad to Djibouti, Jeddah and Istanbul.

Full and moving on

The airport sits inside the city with no room to grow. In June 2025 President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud laid the foundation stone for a second airport about 30 to 36 km north-east of the capital; see New Mogadishu International Airport. UNOPS says Aden Adde "reaches its operational limits" (UNOPS press release, 3 February 2026).

Related

• Airlines in Somalia
• Somalia's seaports
• Mogadishu