Round-up28 SEP 20265 min readDromopedia editors

Runways that float

Some airports publish runways that are really lanes of water, marked on a chart, bounded by buoys, and closed to heavy aircraft when the lake begins to freeze.

Diagram of Lake Hood Seaplane Base
Lake Hood Seaplane Base · Federal Aviation Administration, Alaskan Region · Public domain · Commons

A runway does not have to be solid. ICAO defines an aerodrome as "a defined area on land or water" used for the arrival, departure and surface movement of aircraft, and the only thing Annex 14 says about the water kind is the colour of its beacon: yellow flashes for a water aerodrome, green for land.1 The detail lives in national rules.

In the United States the FAA calls the landing strip a sea lane, or water lane: "a defined path within a water operating area dedicated for the landing and takeoff of seaplanes along its length". A marked lane has its four corners identified by buoys, and marking matters legally: under Part 77 a seaplane base counts as an airport only if its lanes are outlined by visual markers. The FAA recommends at least two buoys at each end, alignment into the prevailing wind, and, where night use is intended, portable battery lights on top of the buoys, though its seaplane handbook treats a night water landing as an emergency measure.2 The FAA's airport records list these lanes alongside ordinary runways, identified by compass points rather than magnetic headings: E/W, N/S, SE/NW.3

Canada has the same idea under another name. The Canadian Aviation Regulations define an aerodrome broadly and let a water aerodrome be registered rather than certified; the requirements are little more than a wind indicator, plus the shipping rules once the aircraft is on the water. Nav Canada prints every water aerodrome shown on its VFR charts in an annual Water Aerodrome Supplement.4

Lake Hood, Anchorage

PALHLake Hood Seaplane Base US · 79 FT / 24 M · RWY 4,541 FT / 1,384 MThree water lanes, the longest 1,384 m, and a 671 m gravel strip. FAA activation date June 1947.

Lake Hood lies between Anchorage's international airport and the city, and the state that owns it calls it the largest and busiest seaplane base in the world. Its consultants' figures, drawn from FAA counts, put take-offs and landings at 62,297 in 2021, with a peak of 72,011 in 2014. About 1,000 single-engine aircraft are based there. Roughly 500 floatplane slips and 500 tie-downs by the gravel strip are all taken; the waiting list for a slip was 13 years long.5 Traffic is seasonal: 46% of 2021's operations fell in June, July and August.5

The FAA record lists three water lanes, E/W at 4,541 × 188 ft, N/S at 1,930 × 200 ft and SE/NW at 1,369 × 150 ft, and a gravel runway 14/32 of 2,200 × 75 ft limited to aircraft of 9,000 lb or less.3 The register carries the same figures in metres: 1,384 m, 588 m, 417 m and 671 m.6

The lake does not close for winter; it changes surface. The FAA record shuts it to aircraft over 12,500 lb from freeze-up to 31 December and warns of overflow onto the ice. The airport measures the ice from the moment there is no open water, extends its readings once it reaches 6 in, and begins grooming ski strips only when it is 12 in thick everywhere and free of overflow. Winter ski operations are announced by NOTAM.7

The register's opening year, 1947, is the FAA's activation date.3 The base is older than that: a channel between Lake Hood and Lake Spenard was proposed in 1938 and finished in 1940, and by 1947 four aviation businesses had settled on the shore. A control tower came in 1954 and closed in 1977, when control passed to the Anchorage tower.8

Malé

MLEVelana International Airport MV · 2 M / 6 FT · RWY 3,400 M / 11,155 FTNo water runway in the register, which lists only the paved 18/36 of 3,400 m. The seaplane lagoon lies off its eastern shore.

Seaplanes began flying from the east side of Malé's airport in 1993, and by 2023 the Maldivian authority counted over 60 of them making an average of 400 movements a day for three operators. The water aerodrome has three water runways and a fourth for emergencies during the westerly monsoon, all with their thresholds and ends marked by buoys; the taxiways have buoys of another colour. Flights are day VFR only, and two pilots are required even though the Twin Otter can be flown by one.9

The largest operator, Trans Maldivian Airways, took delivery of its 66th Twin Otter in January 2026 and describes itself as the world's largest seaplane operator, flying to more than 80 resorts across 16 atolls.10 Since 6 October 2022 all the operators share the Noovilu Seaplane Terminal, opened the same day as the airport's new 3,400 × 60 m runway; the old runway became a taxiway.11 Arriving passengers clear immigration in the main terminal, find their resort's desk and are driven to Noovilu; most resorts keep a lounge there.12

Note that the register lists Velana under its paved runway and holds no water runway row for it. OurAirports records the seaplane lagoon nowhere, so the airport is not in the site's water-runways collection. The card is here because the operation belongs in any account of water runways.6

Vancouver Harbour

CXHVancouver Harbour Water Aerodrome CA · 0 M / 0 FTSeaplane base in Coal Harbour, downtown. 258,028 passengers in 2016 by Statistics Canada; the terminal now claims over 350,000 a year.

Vancouver's downtown float-plane base has scheduled service in the ordinary sense. Harbour Air runs daily direct flights to Victoria's Inner Harbour, which it advertises as 35 minutes dock to dock, and Seair flies to Nanaimo and the Gulf Islands.13 It is one of the few water aerodromes anywhere with its own control tower: Nav Canada's Vancouver Harbour tower sits on top of the 142 m Granville Square building and is the only Canadian tower dedicated to a water aerodrome.14 Aircraft land and take off in a defined area of Burrard Inlet; there is no runway ident, and the register has no runway row.6

The passenger count is old. Statistics Canada's series, which the register takes through Wikidata, gives 258,028 passengers in 2016, down from 374,483 in 2008; no later year is published.15 The terminal, opened on 25 May 2011 with 22 slips on three floating docks, now says more than 350,000 passengers a year pass through, an undated marketing figure.16 For a scheduled hop this short, compare the piece on the ninety-second flight; for one much further north, scheduled service at 78° North.

How the register counts them

The collection behind this piece takes every open airfield that is either filed as a seaplane base or whose longest runway is water. That gives 1,327 places, 733 of them in the United States and 450 in Canada, with France, Sri Lanka and the Maldives far behind. Only 54 are airports rather than seaplane bases. Ketchikan, Alaska, is one of them, because its water lane, at 2,896 m, is longer than its asphalt runway; the list itself is ordered by how widely each place is written about. Lane lengths come from the FAA's airport records for US fields and from OurAirports elsewhere.6

Sources

  1. ICAO, Annex 14, Volume I, Aerodrome Design and Operations, 8th edition, 2018, chapter 1 definition of "aerodrome" and §5.3.3.6 on beacon colours.

  2. FAA, Advisory Circular 150/5395-1B, Seaplane Bases, 31 August 2018, §1.2 definitions 19–23, §3.2.6 on marking and 14 CFR 77.3, §6.2 on lighting and §6.3 on the white-and-yellow beacon.

  3. FAA, airport data for LHD, Lake Hood, effective 3 September 2026: owner State of Alaska DOT&PF, elevation 79 ft, lanes and runway as given, remarks on weight limits, freeze-up and ice overflow. Activation date June 1947 per AirNav, LHD, from the same FAA record. 2 3

  4. Canadian Aviation Regulations, SOR/96-433, §101.01, current to 3 September 2026; Transport Canada, briefing on water aerodromes, March 2024, on registration and the wind indicator; Nav Canada, Canada Water Aerodrome Supplement, edition of 19 March 2026.

  5. McKinley Research Group for the Anchorage Economic Development Corporation, Lake Hood Seaplane Base Economic Impact Study, February 2023, hosted by Alaska DOT&PF: operations 2010–2021 from FAA counts, based aircraft, slips, waiting lists, the "largest and busiest" description. 2

  6. Dromopedia register: Water runways, open seaplane bases and airports whose longest runway is water; runway rows from the FAA for US fields, from OurAirports elsewhere. Lake Hood: entry data, lanes from the FAA. Velana: entry data, runway 18/36 from OurAirports, no water rows, so not in the collection. Vancouver Harbour: entry data, passengers from Wikidata, no runway rows. Ketchikan: entry data, water lane WNW/ESE 2,896 m and asphalt 11/29 2,286 m, from the FAA. 2 3 4

  7. Alaska DOT&PF, Ted Stevens Anchorage International Airport, Lake Hood ice conditions: testing procedure, 6 in and 12 in thresholds, readings of 20 March 2026.

  8. US Fish and Wildlife Service, Alaska's busiest seaplane base, for the 1938–1947 timeline; the AEDC study above for the tower of 1954, closed 1977. The FWS piece puts the tower's closure after the international airport opened in 1951; the study's dates are followed here.

  9. Maldives, Seaplane Operations in the Maldives, information paper IP/05 to the ICAO Asia/Pacific Aerodrome Assistance Working Group, 13–16 March 2023.

  10. Trans Maldivian Airways, 66th aircraft joins the fleet, 27 January 2026. The "world's largest" description is the company's own; Wikipedia traces it to the 2013 merger with Maldivian Air Taxi, which produced a fleet of 44.

  11. Maldives, The implementation of a new runway and changes to the airspace, information paper IP/09 to ICAO SAIOSEACG/2, 20–24 March 2023: inaugurated 6 October 2022, 3,400 × 60 m, code 4F, old runway now a parallel taxiway. Terminal opening the same day: Velana International Airport, English Wikipedia, citing Raajje TV of 6 October 2022.

  12. Trans Maldivian Airways, Noovilu Seaplane Terminal, on MACL's ownership and the lounges; Maldives Airports Company, Noovilu Seaplane Terminal, on the transfer procedure and the three operators.

  13. Harbour Air, Vancouver Harbour, terminal at 1055 Canada Place, Coal Harbour; Harbour Air, Vancouver–Victoria in 35 minutes; Vancouver Harbour Flight Centre, English Wikipedia, for the operators and destinations.

  14. Vancouver Harbour Control Tower, English Wikipedia, citing Transport Canada tower statistics: 54,741 movements in 2009. Nav Canada publishes no page of its own on the tower.

  15. Statistics Canada, air passenger traffic at Canadian airports, via Wikidata Q3912738: 374,483 (2008), 340,179 (2009), 312,418 (2010), 299,083 (2011), 276,849 (2012), 256,025 (2013), 247,739 (2014), 252,143 (2015), 258,028 (2016).

  16. Vancouver Harbour Flight Centre, Facilities: 22 slips, three docks, "over 350,000 passengers"; opening date 25 May 2011 from Wikipedia.

Codes, elevations and runway lengths in the airport cards are from the Dromopedia register, built from FAA NASR, OurAirports and Wikidata. Each entry’s data page names the source of every field; see also About the data.