Kofinou Highway Strip

34°50'03"N 033°24'43"E

runway: 06/24 - 2500x00m - surface

Kofinou Highway Strip is an emergency airfield in Cyprus.
The airfield was built after the invasion of Cyprus by Turkey in 1974, when the country was effectively left without a major airfield. To prevent such an event from ever happening again, the Cyprus government not only built two new international airfields (and a national airfield), but also some runways intended for emergency use (i.e. war). The airfield is located on the A-5 highway, southeast of the point where it splits off from the A-1 highway. It is  orientated SW-NE and has two aircraft parkings on both ends. Those on the south lane are slightly offset to the east. Although there is a small tunnel on the east side of the airfield, this does probably not hinder the use of larger aircraft, such as the C-130.
I have not found any references to the airfield ever having been used.


Overview of the airstrip in 2009 (Google Earth)

Richard Flagg visited Cyprus in the second half of 2014. He kindly allowed me to use some of the photos he shot for UKAirfields.


Runway 'piano-keys' near the northeast parking.


The northwest parking


Looking west along the strip from the northeast parking.


Video of a drive along the entire length of the strip. Immediately -while coming out of a slight turn- a parking becomes visible to the left. We pass the 'piano keys and a second parking becomes visible over the center guard rail. The drive then continues to the other end, where the sequence is repeated: first parking left, then piano keys, then parking right (video by Richard Flagg, used with permisson).