49 free Airport trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
43 free Airport trivia questions with answers. Airports are where most travel stories begin, and this quiz covers the ones worth talking about. There are the records: Atlanta's decades as the busiest, Dubai for international traffic, Denver's enormous acreage, Changi's 40-metre indoor waterfall, Tibet's 5,500-metre runway and the 1.7-mile hop between two Orkney islands. Then the codes and their odd origins (Orchard Field, McCoy Air Force Base, the X added to LA, the YYZ that became a Rush song), the name changes at Idlewild and London Airport, and the dangerous ones: Kai Tak's apartment-block approach, Lukla's 11.7 percent slope, Barra's tidal beach, Gibraltar's road across the runway, St. Maarten's beach flyovers and Bhutan's handful of certified pilots. Plus airport history: College Park and Wilbur Wright, Croydon's first control tower, the Berlin Airlift, Shannon's first duty-free shop, the jet bridge inventor, and the refugee who lived 18 years in Charles de Gaulle. Easy questions suit anyone with a boarding pass; harder ones will test frequent flyers and avgeeks. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the airports, and the source line appears under each question after you answer.
30 of 49 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which airport has been the world's busiest by passenger traffic every year since 1998, except 2020?
Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson
It is named after two former Atlanta mayors, William Hartsfield and Maynard Jackson.
Q 02Which airport was the world's busiest by passengers on non-domestic routes in 2024?
Dubai (DXB)
Its IATA code is DXB.
Q 03Chicago O'Hare's code ORD comes from the airport's earlier name; what was it?
Orchard Field
It was renamed in 1949 for Medal of Honor aviator Edward 'Butch' O'Hare.
Q 04Chicago's O'Hare airport is named after a World War II figure of what kind?
A naval aviator
Butch O'Hare was the US Navy's first flying ace of the war.
Q 05Why is Los Angeles airport's code LAX rather than LA?
Codes went to three letters in 1947 and an X was added
The site began as Mines Field, host of the 1928 National Air Races.
Q 06Orlando's code MCO comes from what?
McCoy Air Force Base
The Strategic Air Command base closed in 1975.
Q 07Which Canadian rock band recorded an instrumental named after Toronto Pearson's code, YYZ?
Rush
A photo of Pearson's original Terminal 1 is on the Voyager Golden Record.
Q 08What was JFK Airport commonly called until December 24, 1963?
Idlewild
Officially it was New York International Airport, Anderson Field, from 1948.
Q 09Which architect designed JFK's winged TWA Flight Center, opened in 1962?
Eero Saarinen
It is now a hotel.
Q 10Heathrow opened in 1946 under what earlier name?
London Airport
It was renamed Heathrow in September 1966 to avoid confusion with Gatwick and Stansted.
Q 11Denver International owns how much land, the most of any commercial airport in North America?
33,531 acres
It opened on February 28, 1995.
Q 12What material is Denver airport's famous peaked terminal roof made of?
White fabric
Heavy snow tore a hole in it during a March 2003 blizzard, closing the airport for two days.
Q 13Denver airport's notorious 32-foot 'Blucifer' sculpture is what animal?
A blue horse
Luis Jiménez's Blue Mustang was one of the airport's earliest public art commissions, in 1993.
Q 21Japan's Kansai International Airport is built where?
On an artificial island in Osaka Bay
The island is called Kankūjima.
Q 22Loganair's Westray to Papa Westray flight, the world's shortest scheduled service, covers what distance?
1.7 miles
It is scheduled for a minute and a half and about equals Edinburgh Airport's runway length.
Q 23Qamdo Bamda Airport in Tibet once had the world's longest runway, at what length?
5.5 km
It sits at 4,334 metres and was formerly the world's highest airport.
Q 14Singapore Changi's Rain Vortex holds the world record for the tallest what?
Indoor waterfall
It cascades 40 metres down seven storeys inside Jewel Changi.
Q 15Hong Kong's Kai Tak Airport, famed for its hair-raising approach, closed in which year?
1998
Water on three sides and 2,000-foot mountains forced planes to drop in fast over Kowloon City.
Q 16Which main road crosses the runway at Gibraltar's airport?
Winston Churchill Ave
It heads to the Spanish border and used to be closed for every aircraft movement.
Q 17Barra Airport in the Outer Hebrides is believed to be the only one where scheduled flights land on what?
A tidal beach
Its bay is called Traigh Mhòr.
Q 18Lukla's Tenzing-Hillary Airport in Nepal has a runway with what gradient?
11.7 percent
The runway is just 527 metres long, and a 2010 History Channel show rated it the world's most dangerous.
Q 19Princess Juliana Airport's famously low landings pass right over which stretch of sand?
Maho Beach
It is on the Dutch side of St. Martin.
Q 20Bhutan's Paro Airport is ringed by peaks up to 5,500 metres; what is unusual about who may fly there?
Only a handful of pilots are certified to land
It is considered one of the world's most challenging airports.
Q 24College Park Airport in Maryland was founded in 1909 so that whom could teach army officers to fly?
Wilbur Wright
The Signal Corps set it up for the government's first airplane.
Q 25Which airport near the British capital, opened in 1920, introduced the world's first air traffic control?
Croydon
It also had the first airport terminal and the first airport hotel.
Q 26Tempelhof was the centre of which Cold War operation?
The 1948-49 Airlift
The airport ceased operating in 2008 and is now a park.
Q 27The world's first duty-free shop opened in 1947 at which airport?
Shannon, Ireland
Brendan O'Regan founded it, and it is still in operation.
Q 28Who is credited with inventing the jet bridge?
Frank Der Yuen
The generic term 'jetway' comes from a brand name.
Q 29How many letters are in an IATA airport code?
Three
ICAO codes have four letters; IATA is headquartered in Montreal.
Q 30Mehran Karimi Nasseri lived in Terminal 1 of which airport from 1988 to 2006?
Charles de Gaulle
His story inspired Spielberg's The Terminal; he died in 2022.