Foggia airport

Foggia airport
Characteristics
ICAO code	LIBF
IATA code	FOG
Coordinates	41 ° 26 '2 " N , 15 ° 32' 9" E Coordinates: 41 ° 26 '2 " N , 15 ° 32' 9" E
Height above MSL	81 m (266 ft )
Transport links
Distance from the city center	3 km south of Foggia
Local transport	bus
Basic data
opening	1915
operator	Aeroporti di Puglia SpA
Terminals	1
Passengers	387 (2019)
Air freight	0 (2019)
Flight ; movements	693 (2019)
Start-and runway
15/33	1560 m × 45 m asphalt

The Foggia airport ( ital. : Aeroporto di Foggia "Gino Lisa" ) is located in the region of Puglia in southeastern Italy . It is located three kilometers south of the provincial capital Foggia .

Transport links

ATAF buses and buses from Airbus connect the airport with the city center. Pugliairbus offers trips to Bari , Brindisi , Taranto and Matera . Foggia is considered a transport hub . Adriatic towns that are further away are easy to reach via the A14 motorway . Several state roads lead from Foggia in all directions. The city's main train station is a railway junction .

Airlines and Destinations

Currently, the airport is mostly only used by general aviation and for helicopter flights to the San Domino heliport on the Tremiti Islands , and occasionally also by charter airlines. As the runway is only 1,600 meters long, the airport can currently only be approached by short-haul aircraft. An extension of the runway by around 400 meters is planned. The aim of this extension is to achieve greater commercial use of the airport, particularly by low-cost airlines.

history

Today's commercial airport of Foggia was until the end of the Second World War, a central component of the so-called " airfields of Foggia " ( Foggia Airfield Complex ). Some of them emerged on the vast plains of the Foggia province during the First World War . Until 1943 they were used by Italians and then also by Germans for military operations in the Balkans , after which they were used by Allied bombers until 1945 , who mainly attacked targets in northern Italy, southern France, southern Germany, Austria and the Balkans from here. Up until 1945 there were more than 30 military airfields around Foggia , of which only two remained after the war: the Amendola military airfield (also known as "Foggia-Amendola") located around 15 kilometers north-east of Foggia and the present day Foggia airport, which fell after 1917 Military pilot Gino Lisa is named.

Today's Foggia Airport was built in the autumn of 1915 as a military airfield and was mainly used for training purposes. Starting in 1917 , around 400 US pilots were trained here under the command of the future mayor of New York , Fiorello LaGuardia , among others on Italian bombers of the Caproni Ca.3 type . Even after the First World War, the airfield was primarily used for pilot training and, as part of a special agreement, also for training pilots of the new German armed forces . Since 1922 it was also used for civilian purposes. From 1941, during the Second World War, it was mainly used by the German Air Force . In the summer of 1943 the airfields around Foggia and the city itself were badly destroyed by Allied bombers. At the end of September 1943, the British first took over the airfield, who called it Foggia Main ("main airfield"), and then the Americans joined them.

In 1947 the Italian Air Force took control of the airfield again and again set up a flight school. In 1951 the reopening for civil aviation followed, and in 1953 the local aero club also settled here. After the withdrawal of the military, commercial air traffic began in 1971 with flights to and from Rome by the Alitalia subsidiary ATI . When the ATI retired its Fokker F-27 in 1975 , the regular service to Foggia had to be stopped. It was not until 1989 that it was revived by smaller regional airlines.

The airport is currently being partially renovated. After construction work to upgrade the terminal building for passengers, the runway is now to be extended.