Rota International Airport

Rota International Airport (IATA: ROP, ICAO: PGRO, FAA LID: GRO) is a public airport located on Rota Island in the United States Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), near the village of Sinapalo. The airport is owned by the Commonwealth Ports Authority.

Although most U.S. airports use the same three-letter location identifier for the FAA and IATA, Rota International Airport is assigned GRO by the FAA and ROP by the IATA (which assigned GRO to Girona-Costa Brava Airport in Girona, Spain).

Facilities and aircraft

Rota International Airport covers an area of 820 acres (324 ha) which contains one paved runway (9/27) measuring 6,000 x 150 ft (1,829 x 46 m). For 12-month period ending March 31, 2006, the airport had 6,550 aircraft operations, an average of 17 per day: 94% air taxi, 4% general aviation and 2% military. Since the CNMI is a separate immigration and customs jurisdiction, Rota International Airport is a designated port of entry staffed by the CNMI Division of Immigration and the CNMI Division of Customs.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) began its Rota operations in March 2006. After the creation of TSA in 2002 but before Rota Airport was "federalized" in 2006, passengers from Rota had to be screened upon arrival on Guam or Saipan.The lack of TSA at Rota Airport was a nuisance for passengers transiting from Guam through Rota to Saipan, who had to encounter screenings (either customs or security) at all three points.