Alexander Kartveli Batumi International Airport

Named for Georgian-American aeronautical engineer Alexander Kartveli (designer of the P-47 Thunderbolt), Batumi International Airport sits only about 2 km from downtown Batumi on Georgia's Black Sea coast — one of the shortest airport-to-city distances in the region — and roughly 20 km from the Sarpi border crossing into Turkey.

TAV Georgia, which also runs Tbilisi's airport, has operated Batumi since its current terminal opened in 2007, under a concession running to 2027. A 2019–2021 expansion doubled the terminal to about 8,000 m² ($17M) and lifted capacity from 600,000 to 1.2 million passengers a year; a more recent runway and apron upgrade brought stand capacity to 9 aircraft plus a helicopter pad.

2025 was a record year here too — Batumi crossed 1 million passengers by October and finished the year up roughly 30% on 2024, and 96% above 2019. The route map leans heavily seasonal and regional rather than year-round legacy-carrier traffic: Turkish Airlines and Pegasus to Istanbul, Central Asian carriers to Almaty, Astana and Tashkent, Russian carriers to Moscow and other cities, Israeli carriers to Tel Aviv, Gulf carriers to Dubai and Riyadh, plus Baltic, Balkan and domestic links. Summer (roughly May–September) is peak beach season; winter service thins out considerably. New for summer 2026: FlyArystan's Astana route and Air Cairo's first-ever direct Cairo–Batumi service.

Getting into town: it's a quick 10–20 minutes by car. Public buses #9, #10 and #10a run from the terminal into the centre for a few tetri, every 10–15 minutes until around 22:00. Bolt rides typically cost 8–15 GEL. There's no rail link at the airport itself — Batumi's Central railway station is about 9 km away, with a handful of daily trains to Tbilisi (roughly 5h15m).