A robust time synchronization algorithm is proposed for orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) based aeronautical mobile airport communication systems (AeroMACS). Using a very sharp timing metric obtained from the preamble, the proposed algorithm shows very robust time synchronization performance for various channel models in an airport. Simulation results show that the proposed algorithm achieves an SNR gain of 2 to 3dB at the failure rate of 10-2 to 10-3 compared with previous algorithms.