Queen Alia International Airport — Amman, Jordan

Jordan's principal airport is named for Queen Alia, the third wife of King Hussein, who died in a helicopter crash in 1977 while traveling to deliver aid following an earthquake, a loss still commemorated in the country today. Located south of Amman and opened in the early 1980s to replace the older, more central Marka field, Queen Alia stands 2,395 feet above the desert plateau, its two runways carrying the vast majority of Jordan's international passenger traffic. Amman itself has grown enormously over the decades, absorbing successive waves of refugees from conflicts in Palestine, Iraq, and Syria, and the airport's traffic reflects both that humanitarian dimension and Jordan's role as a relatively stable hub for regional business and diplomacy. Royal Jordanian, the national carrier, operates its main hub from Queen Alia, connecting Amman to Europe, the Gulf, and beyond. The terminal's concrete domes, evoking traditional Bedouin tents, have won architectural recognition since a recent expansion. For visitors to Petra, the Dead Sea, and Jordan's other major attractions, Queen Alia functions as the near-universal point of entry, since the older Marka field now handles only a small fraction of the country's air traffic by comparison.