Gibraltar is a tiny British territory on the southern coast of Spain - it has an area of just 2.6 square miles.

Small as it may be, it is said to be home to one of the world's most extreme airports. The Gibraltar International Airport, which sits at the tip of the territory's northern border with Spain, has a busy highway bisecting its runway.


The four-lane Winston Churchill Boulevard is the main road leading into and out of Gibraltar. Every time a plane takes off or lands, the road must close, creating one of the most insane airport traffic patterns in the world, as well as insane traffic.

Gibraltar's airport is small - in 2015 there there were only around 11 flights daily - but the road can still be closed for up to two hours per day, creating backups all across town and up to the Spanish border.


Tourism in the territory is growing, and more and more airlines are operating flights into and out of the airport.


NOW WATCH: A crazy adventure takes people more than 2,000 miles across India in a rickshaw Please enable Javascript to watch this video

As air and road traffic have both picked up over the years, pressure has been building to construct a roadway that doesn't bisect an active runway, for safety and convenience's sake. The new road would cross the runway via an underground tunnel, leaving a clear path for aircraft takeoffs and landings.