The closest airport to Encinitas is McClellan-Palomar Airport, a general aviation, public facility in the city of Carlsbad. The airport, which is owned by San Diego County, is specifically geared toward serving flyers in the North San Diego County area. The airport, which covers 466 acres, has one 4,900-foot asphalt runway.
The other airport in North County is Oceanside Municipal Airport, a public airport in the city of Oceanside. The 43-acre airport, which is located about 13 miles from Encinitas, has one 2,700-foot asphalt runway.
Montgomery Field is located in the northern part of the city of San Diego, about 18 miles southwest of Encinitas. It is a public, 456-acre airport that has three runways and two helipads, all of which are paved with asphalt. Two of the runways measure 3,400 feet in length; the other is 4,500. The helipads are 100 and 50 feet long each. The Federal Aviation Administration also maintains an air traffic control tower at Montgomery Field.
San Diego International Airport, located about 22 miles from Encinitas in central San Diego, is the largest, busiest airport in the region. The airport, also known as Lindbergh Field after aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh, is one of the busiest single-runway airports in the U.S., and logs about 600 arrivals and departures daily.
San Diego is also home to Brown Field Municipal Airport, a small, City of San Diego-operated facility that's in southern San Diego, about a mile north of the Tijuana, Mexico airport. Brown Field is a general aviation airport and has two runways; one 7,900 feet long and another 3,100 feet long.
Gillespie Field, located in the city of El Cajon due east of San Diego, is a San Diego County-owned public use airport located about 24 miles southeast of Encinitas. The airport, which is named after a former U.S. Marine Corps officer, was originally a USMC auxiliary airfield, but was turned over to San Diego County in 1946. The facility has three asphalt-paved runways; one is 5,400 feet long, another is 4,100 feet and the third is 1,600 feet.
The Gen. Abelardo L. Rodriguez International Airport, commonly known as Tijuana Airport, is the second-largest and busiest airport in the region, after San Diego International Airport. Tijuana Airport, located about 39 miles south of Encinitas, near downtown Tijuana, Mexico, is both a public-use and military airport, and has flights arriving from and departing to international locations on a semi-regular basis, particularly Cuba and Asian countries. The airport uses one 2,900-foot asphalt runway and can handle up to 360 flights daily.
