Pınarhisar Airport

Military decommissioning. The airport was a military airfield whose strategic importance significantly decreased after the end of the Cold War. Originally built as a forward/dispersal base, changes in military doctrine, technology, and the geopolitical landscape made such airfields obsolete and costly to maintain, leading to its closure.

The site has been completely repurposed and is now the location of a large-scale solar power plant. The former runway, taxiways, and apron areas are covered with thousands of photovoltaic panels. While the faint outline of the original runway is still visible in satellite imagery, the land has been fully converted for renewable energy generation and is no longer an aviation facility in any capacity.

Pınarhisar Airport was a Turkish Air Force (Türk Hava Kuvvetleri) airfield with a strategic military purpose. Located in the Kırklareli province near the border with Bulgaria, it served as a dispersal airfield during the Cold War. Its primary function was to act as an emergency landing strip and a forward operating location for combat aircraft in the event of a conflict with the Warsaw Pact. It was not a main operating base with permanently stationed squadrons but was maintained for contingency use and occasional military training exercises. The airport never handled scheduled commercial or civilian flights.

Zero. There are no plans or prospects for reopening the airport. The construction of a permanent and extensive solar farm on the entire site makes its return to aviation use physically and economically impossible. The land has been permanently reallocated for energy infrastructure.