Canton Island Airport (CIS)

Canton Island Airport is a small public airfield on Kanton Island, the only inhabited island in the Phoenix Islands group of the Republic of Kiribati. The site was established in 1938–1939 by Pan American Airways as a refueling stop on its trans-Pacific route between Hawaii and New Zealand.

During the Second World War the United States expanded the airfield into a major staging and refueling base, and after the war it briefly returned to commercial service on routes linking Honolulu, Fiji, Auckland and Sydney. As long-range jets entered service in the 1960s, scheduled stopovers ended and the airport was gradually reduced to occasional and emergency use.

The airfield now has a single asphalt runway of about 1,900 m (6,230 ft) and very limited infrastructure, with no scheduled commercial airline service. Kanton Island has only a few dozen residents and lies within the Phoenix Islands Protected Area.

Located about 3,000 km southwest of Hawaii in the central Pacific, the island is far from major towns, so onward travel is normally by occasional or chartered flights, government vessels or private boats. Facilities are minimal, and visitors should plan logistics and supplies in advance.