Irkutsk International Airport — Irkutsk, Russia

IKT serves Irkutsk, a Siberian city on the Angara River that functions as the main jumping-off point for travelers heading to Lake Baikal, the deepest and among the oldest freshwater lakes on the planet, roughly an hour away by road. Unusually for a facility of its size, the airport's runway sits close enough to residential neighborhoods that flight paths pass directly over parts of the city, a legacy of Soviet-era planning decisions made decades before Irkutsk grew to its current footprint. The airport handles a mix of domestic Russian routes connecting to Moscow and other major cities, along with seasonal international service that has fluctuated with broader geopolitical conditions. Beyond tourism to Baikal, IKT supports trade and administrative travel tied to Irkutsk Oblast's mining, timber, and energy industries, making it a working transport node as much as a gateway for sightseers.