Landing at OHD: the 14 km into town, and why no bus meets you
Ohrid Airport transfers are a road-only affair: no scheduled bus links the terminal at Orovnik with either Ohrid or Struga, so arriving passengers leave by taxi or in a car booked in advance. The drive into Ohrid measures about 14 km and the drive to Struga about 13 km, each comfortably under half an hour.
Ohrid St Paul the Apostle Airport (OHD/LWOH) is the smaller of North Macedonia's two commercial airfields, and the only one that sets you down inside the lake basin itself. The terminal stands at Orovnik in Debarca Municipality, on flat ground north-west of the town, at 705 m above sea level — ten metres higher than Ohrid town. Its single asphalt runway 01/19 runs to 2,550 m, and the airfield has been managed by TAV Airports Holding under the twenty-year concession the Macedonian government signed in 2008.
What catches first-time arrivals out is what is absent. No scheduled bus of any kind connects the terminal with Ohrid city centre, and no railway comes near the site, so everyone who walks out of arrivals leaves in a car. Taxis meet flights; between flights the forecourt is quiet. Working that out on the pavement, after a late arrival in a place where the street signs are Cyrillic first, is the avoidable part of the journey.
The route
Two directions leave the airfield gate and they run opposite ways. Bear south-east and a short link lane feeds onto the main trunk route, which carries you roughly seven kilometres further to reach Ohrid — about 14 km terminal to town, ending in the grid of streets below Samuel's Fortress. Bear the other way and you peel off that same trunk route after some six kilometres, dropping into Struga town in about 13 km, arriving where the Black Drin leaves the lake and cuts the place in two.
The two towns are themselves only about 15 km apart, which means the airfield genuinely sits between them rather than behind one of them. Neither leg is long and both are ordinary two-lane tarmac with village limits along the way. Nothing about either drive is technical; the only thing that catches people out is assuming a transfer to Struga must cost more time than a transfer to Ohrid, when in fact it is the shorter of the two.
Season and timing
The airfield's rhythm is set almost entirely by who is flying it, and the split between year-round and summer-only services is what makes the same building feel deserted in April and crowded in August. Wizz Air holds the year-round core — Basel/Mulhouse, Dortmund and Memmingen — with Bratislava, Katowice, Milan–Malpensa and Wrocław added for the warm months. Chair Airlines works Zürich through the year, and Edelweiss Air adds a seasonal frequency on that same city.
Everything else is summer only: TUI Airways out of London–Gatwick and Manchester, TUI fly Netherlands out of Amsterdam, Austrian Airlines from Vienna, Air Serbia from Belgrade, Turkish Airlines from Istanbul. The traffic figures track the pattern rather than smooth it — 219,916 in 2024, then 263,869 in 2025 after a rise of twenty per cent. Read the schedule before you fix your dates: an April arrival and an August arrival at the same gate are two different logistical problems.
Practical details
Settle the ground leg before you board rather than after you land. With nothing scheduled serving the terminal, the practical choice is a taxi from the rank or a car arranged in advance, and the two behave differently at the edges of the day. A flight arriving after the evening peak finds fewer cars waiting; a flight delayed an hour finds fewer still. Carry some Macedonian denars — card acceptance in small vehicles is uneven — and expect less English outside the summer season.
If your bed is in Struga rather than Ohrid town, say so at the point of booking. A driver expecting the standard town run will not automatically head the other way, and the two destinations sit on opposite sides of the airfield. Anyone continuing to Sveti Naum, to Bitola or over a border should treat the airfield as the start of a longer drive rather than a short hop, and plan the pick-up window accordingly.
Nearby
Both legs carry on past their nominal endpoints, which is what makes this airfield useful well beyond the two towns. North-west of Struga the shoreline lane runs on to Kališta Monastery, believed to date from the 16th century and holding frescoes of the 14th and 15th, before the land climbs to the Qafë Thanë pass and the crossing into Albania — the reason a Struga base often suits an Albania-bound itinerary better than an Ohrid one does.
Inland from that same stretch lies the Radolishta basilica, a 4th-century church with a surviving mosaic, discovered outside Struga. Head the opposite way and the eastern shore lane threads south from Ohrid through Peštani and Trpejca, the lakeside villages behind most photographs of the water, before finishing at Sveti Naum near the southern border. None of it is far from the runway. All of it begins with the same fourteen kilometres.
At a glance
- Airport codes
- OHD (IATA) / LWOH (ICAO) (Wikipedia, Ohrid St. Paul the Apostle Airport, checked 2026-09)
- Public bus link
- None — no bus connects the airport with Ohrid city centre (Wikipedia, Ohrid St. Paul the Apostle Airport, ground transport, checked 2026-09)
- Terminal to Ohrid by road
- About 14 km, roughly 25–30 minutes (OpenStreetMap driving route measured on the OSRM demo server (router.project-osrm.org), checked 2026-09)
- Terminal to Struga by road
- About 13 km (OpenStreetMap driving route measured on the OSRM demo server (router.project-osrm.org), checked 2026-09)
- Runway and elevation
- Runway 01/19, 2,550 m asphalt, at 705 m above sea level (Wikipedia, Ohrid St. Paul the Apostle Airport, checked 2026-09)
- Annual traffic
- 263,869 in 2025, a rise of 20.0% on 219,916 in 2024 (Wikipedia, Ohrid St. Paul the Apostle Airport, statistics table, checked 2026-09)
- Year-round destinations
- Basel/Mulhouse, Dortmund and Memmingen (Wizz Air); Zürich (Chair Airlines) (Wikipedia, Ohrid St. Paul the Apostle Airport, airlines and destinations table, checked 2026-09)
Good to know
- No scheduled bus of any kind links Ohrid St Paul the Apostle Airport with Ohrid city centre, so every arriving passenger leaves the terminal by car.
- The airport is usually described as lying nine kilometres north-west of Ohrid, but the driving route from the terminal into the town measures about 14 km.
- Wizz Air's Basel/Mulhouse, Dortmund and Memmingen services run at Ohrid year-round, while the London–Gatwick, Manchester and Amsterdam flights are summer-season only.
- Ohrid's runway 01/19 is 2,550 m of asphalt at 705 m above sea level, ten metres higher than the town the airfield serves.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a bus from Ohrid Airport into the city?
No scheduled bus service connects the terminal with Ohrid city centre or with Struga, and no railway reaches the site. Everyone arriving leaves either in a taxi from the rank outside arrivals or in a car booked before the flight.
How far is Ohrid Airport from Ohrid and from Struga?
The driving route from the terminal into Ohrid measures about 14 km, and the route to Struga about 13 km, both measured on the OpenStreetMap driving profile. The airfield is often described as nine kilometres from Ohrid, but that is the direct line rather than the drive.
Which airlines fly to Ohrid Airport all year round?
Wizz Air's Basel/Mulhouse, Dortmund and Memmingen routes and the Chair Airlines service to Zürich operate through the year. The British, Dutch, Austrian, Serbian and Turkish services are summer-season only, which is why the terminal is far busier in August than in April.
Should I fly into Ohrid or into Skopje for Lake Ohrid?
Ohrid puts you fourteen kilometres from the water; Skopje's airport is about 195 km away by road. Flying into Ohrid removes the long transfer but offers a narrow route map, while Skopje offers far more flights year-round at the cost of a drive of nearly three hours.
Does Ohrid Airport stay open outside the summer season?
Yes. The year-round Swiss and German services keep the airfield working through the winter, though on a far thinner timetable than in high season. Check the published schedule before planning a winter arrival, because a thin timetable leaves little room to recover a missed connection.
Related pages
Last reviewed: 2026-09-01