The Mangalore International Airport serves both the purpose of domestic and international flights. The airport is situated at a distance of 18 km from the coastal city of Mangalore, India. The airport was formally known as Bajpe Airport. The Mangalore International Airport is situated near Bajpe around 20km north-east of the city. Till 2005, the airport had a runway measuring 1.6 km. This small runway could only handle Boing 737 aircraft. Regular domestic flights are available for Mumbai, Bangalore, Goa, Kochi, Kozhikode and Chennai.

The runway was situated at the top of a hill. It has a landing approach leading up to the extreme edges of the hill sides, called a table top runway. From a height of about 90 m (300 ft) to 9 m (30 ft), it seems like the edges of the hill are dropping into the valley within a short distance of just 500 m (151 ft) on the east side of the runway and from about 83 m (269 ft) to 25m (83 ft) on the western side. A major problem was that the runway was not even with the height, altering from 90 m (300 ft) to 83 m (269 ft) from east to west. Landing on this small runway at the airport was regarded extremely cumbersome.

An Airbus 319 of Kingfisher Airlines landed on the airport on January 10, 2006 and it was the first aircraft in that class to land on this runway. According to statistics the number of passengers using Mangalore Airport has gone up to 100% last year. On 10th May 2006, a new international runway of 2.9 km length was constructed and commissioned. And thus Mangalore International Airport became the first airport in Karnataka to have two runways. Air-India Express flight IX-802 from Dubai landed on 3rd October 2006, and became the first international flight to land at Mangalore. Air India Express appended connections to Abu Dhabi and Muscat, with Doha and Bahrain on February 15, 2007, thereby adding Mangalore as a new destination.

The Airport authority has a plan to build a new terminal building that will result in reducing the distance between Mangalore city and the airport by about 7 km. Nearest places from the Mangalore International airport are-- Kasargod at a distance of 65 km; Udupi at a distance of 55 km; Manipal at a distance of 60 km; Surathkal at a distance of 16 km; Talapady at a distance of 36 km; Moodabidri at a distance of 22km; Hampankatta at a distance of 22 km; Kollur at a distance of150 km. Simplifly Deccan (Bangalore, Mumbai); Indian (Mumbai); Jet Airways (Bangalore, Mumbai); Kingfisher Airlines (Bangalore, Mumbai, Goa, Kochi, Kozhikode); Air India Express (Kochi, Kozhikode) are the domestic airlines serving the Mangalore International airport. Only Air India Express (Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Doha, Dubai, Muscat) provides international flights to and from the airport.