Neom Bay Airport — Sharma, Saudi Arabia

Built for a city that barely exists yet, Neom Bay Airport carries the code NUM and currently serves the small Red Sea town of Sharma, but its runway, stretching well beyond 12,000 feet, was clearly engineered for a far larger future tied to NEOM, Saudi Arabia's headline megaproject under the Vision 2030 diversification plan. The planned metropolis, envisioned to eventually include a linear city and other futuristic developments near the borders with Jordan and Egypt, remains under construction, so today's traffic through NUM consists mostly of workers, investors, and officials tied to the project rather than the mass tourism the region eventually hopes to attract. The nearby coastline features coral reefs and mountainous desert scenery that planners have marketed as a luxury tourism draw once infrastructure catches up with ambition. Until then, the airport stands as a striking example of infrastructure built years ahead of the population it was designed to serve.