Is there really an airport at Burning Man?

Have you found the pool at Burning Man or the backstage VIP area or how about the mythical “Orgy Dome”?

Fact or fiction?

Burners are notorious for their snark and between that plus anything magical you might have tried there, sometimes it’s difficult to tell what’s real or not.

During my first Burning Man In 2019, at some random time after dark, I have a vivid memory of being out exploring on my bike when I found a hidden road! I followed it to the middle of nowhere and it led me to this mysterious thing:

I figured I accidentally wandered into some hidden area of Burning Man that I wasn’t supposed to be at so I followed the road back to the safety of Black Rock City.

A couple years later, I discovered that I actually found the Burning Man Airport! Whoa!

My close friend, Slayer, started camping at the Airport and she absolutely raved about it so I joined her in 2022. I enjoyed the camp so much that I rejoined the BxA (Burner Express Air) again in 2023!

As you travel around Burning Man meeting some of the coolest people who exist in the world, you often get asked, “What camp are you with?” and I started noticing that people would laugh sometimes when I told them my answer. I was honestly shocked that people didn’t think there was really an airport out there or that they had never heard of it at all. If they heard about it, they had never seen it nor did they have any idea where it was.

Since there was a bit of mystery around the airport. I decided to do a little bit of a deep dive to document as many facts as I could find while collecting a few fun stories from 88NV (the actual flight call letters of the airport)!

Airport Timeline

1986: The first Burning Man
1992: The first aircraft landed at Burning Man
1995: Black Rock Travel Agency (BRTA) camp started
1997: First runway / Unicom is built
1999: Officially recognized by the FAA
2003ish: Officially recognized by Burning Man Org
2005: First BxA chartered flights landed at Burning Man
2008: Officially recognized as a temporary airport
2009: Officially issued the 88NV call letter identifier! AirNav page: https://airnav.com/airport/88NV
2013: On Thursday of the event there were 434 flights, more than the city of Reno, officially making 88NV the second busiest airport in Nevada!
2016: Expanded to two BxA towers

In 2010, the BRTA campers gathered together to form the brand new call letters as seen in the photo from the sky!

Airport By The Numbers

Coming soon!

Where Is The Airport?

You can see the location of the airport from this general map of Burning Man. You can see the airport on the bottom-right side:

The city / camping area of Burning Man is arranged like a clock with the street names going in alphabetical order from A to L. The entrance gate into Burning Man is at 6:00 & the road leading to the airport is at 5:00. My favorite way to tell somebody where the airport is: 5 o’clock & Z. It’s funny because there isn’t a Z street but people will understand, it’s far out!

Flying in!

Once you have secured your ticket to Burning Man & would like to fly into Burning Man, you can purchase a plane ticket departing from these three airports:

RNO (Reno, Nevada)
OAK (Oakland, California - near San Francisco)
BUR (Burbank, California - near Los Angeles)

More information about those locations, luggage limits, and purchasing tickets can be found here: https://burnerexpress.burningman.org/bxa-home/

This is what success looks like once you have managed to secure a ticket, fly in, navigate the Arrivals area, roll in the dust & ring the bell! Welcome home!!!

Just beyond the “Welcome to BRC” sign is the Bus Stop. This is the best place to wait for the BxA Airport Shuttle Bus to take you into the city or if you are lucky, this is where a random art car will magically show up to take you!

Cute sign at the BxA shuttle bus stop in 2023

There is even a Cell Phone Waiting Lot for your friends to hang out at if they get to the Airport prior to your arrival at the bus stop!

Flying out!

A sneak peak inside the Departure Tent:

You can’t miss the Departure Tent. It is very large! Once inside, this is where you have your luggage weighed.

Once you receive your luggage tag, you will navigate to the second room where you will check-in for your actual flight.

Gift your time!

Part of the magic of Burning Man is all of the volunteering that happens to build an entire city… with an actual airport! The Airport is awesome. The crew and the volunteers out there are amazing. If you so desire, here is some insight on how to become involved:

If you are already at Burning Man, do this:

Step 1: Find the airport! (5:00 & Z)

Step 2: Find the pink “Vol Ops” building:

Step 3: Go to the “Volunteer Check-In” window & look for the open positions listed on the board. If there aren’t any listed, talk to the window!

If you want to sign up ahead of time, before arriving at Burning Man, all the info can be found here: https://airport.burningman.org/volunteer-info/

Whenever it’s your volunteer time, check in at the pink box!

Black Rock Travel Agency

BRTA is the name of one of the main theme camps out at the airport. This is the camp that helped start the airport and they help host many of the events and entertainment at the airport!

The large tent behind the BRTA sign is the “Starport”. This is a great hang-out spot. Happy hours and after-parties can be found here also! If you are brave, you can also climb to the top of the Starport for an excellent view! Rumor has it, that you might be able to catch one bar of cell service up there too!

Here is the BRTA sign of events from 2023

The “Starport” is also the home of the Firefly Bar!

But wait, there’s more!

I was fortunate enough to take this photo from a gifted scenic flight in 2022!

There are amazing pilots camped at the Airport who will gift scenic flights to burners during the week of Burning Man! I honestly can’t say enough good things about this experience! It is an amazing opportunity! Here are my pro tips to make sure this happens:

Set the intention beforehand to make this a reality.
Volunteer at the airport! The more you volunteer, the more likely that you will be able to get on & jump to the top of the list! This is the best way!
You can also put your name on the list for a ride with the Ride Wrangler in the Scenic Tent. The list can become very long, sometimes several hours. The list will be shorter if you come as early in the week as possible vs. the weekend. The list is also the shortest in the early morning hours. There is no set time for when the pilots start going up however, there is usually one or two of them that start around sunrise.

This is the plane I flew in for my scenic flight in 2022.

2023

In 2023, I knew I wanted to collect stories from people flying in or out of the airport. Here are a few of my favorites:

I witnessed Laura from New York City receive the bad news that her luggage was overweight but also her plane was about to depart! She frantically started “gifting” the following items out of her bags: a bike repair kit, a bike tire pump, a bike lock, and finally, a blender! She just made weight with moments to spare! Laura was flying to Oakland and then onto NYC after that. She hadn’t booked the second leg of her flight home yet, she would take care of the when she arrived in Oakland!
Hugs (1st time burner) spent the night at the airport because ??? (Get the story from Gibbler).
Kim (11-time burner) missed her flight to Reno. With only a few remaining flights departing, she accepted an empty seat on a flight to Oakland, CA instead. I eavesdropped on her phone call to her husband, informing him that he would need to pick her up in Oakland now! 😮
Eden (with Camp Flying Falafel) was a little stressed because her flight out of Burning Man was delayed a day, causing her to miss her connecting flight back home to Miami.
Cosmo (From New York City) lost his phone at the Airport. Pickler, my dear friend at the Airport found it & noticed that the Lock Screen had all of the camp location information on it. Instead of turning it to lost & found, we went on a mission that night to personally return it! The look of pure joy on his & his fellow campmates was one of my 2023 highlights!
(Get the story from J&A about the artist who wanted to fly up to see his art).
The Airport crew had to make several changes and adjustments to their normal operations because of the challenges the mud presented. For example, the Airport stayed open one extra day than normal and had flights to Reno only for anybody who had a ticket but missed their original flight.

I saw a gay couple (1st-time burners) waiting in the very long line at the airport on the last day. I decided to gift them with one of the pins I made & was met with a lot of laughter! The pin is of a porta-potty at Burning Man. It is a funny pin but it unlocked this story from them: They were camped with Comfort & Joy & went to one of the last epic the night before at the “Future Turtles” camp. Afterward they went on a late-night adventure, touring multiple porta-potties & giggling the night away, at their state of despair.