Bari Karol Wojtyła Airport

Bari Karol Wojtyła Airport (Italian: Aeroporto di Bari-Karol Wojtyła) (IATA: BRI, ICAO: LIBD) is an airport serving the city of Bari in Italy. It is approximately 8 km (5.0 mi) northwest from the town centre. Named after Pope John Paul II, who was born Karol Wojtyła, the airport is also known as Palese Airport (Italian: Aeroporto di Palese) after a nearby neighbourhood. The airport handled 6,461,179 passengers in 2023.^[2]

Bari Karol Wojtyła Airport Aeroporto di Bari-Karol Wojtyła
IATA: BRI ICAO: LIBD
Summary
Airport type	Public-Civil-Military
Operator	Aeroporti di Puglia
Serves	Bari, Italy
Focus city for	Ryanair Volotea
Elevation AMSL	187 ft / 57 m
Coordinates	41°08′19.88″N 16°45′38.14″E / 41.1388556°N 16.7605944°E / 41.1388556; 16.7605944
Website	aeroportidipuglia.it
Map
BRI Location of the airport in Italy Show map of Apulia BRI BRI (Italy) Show map of Italy
Runways
Direction Length Surface ft m 07/25 9,842 3,000 Asphalt
Statistics (2023)
Passengers 6,474,463 Passenger change 22-23 4.3% Movements 50,116 Movements change 22-23 -3.3% Cargo (tons) 2,469 Cargo change 22-23 1.6%
Statistics from Assaeroporti^[1]

History

Early years

The airport of Bari was originally a military airfield, built in the 1930s, by the Regia Aeronautica. During World War II Italian Campaign, it was seized by the British Eighth Army in late September 1943, and turned into an Allied military airfield. Until the end of the war in May 1945, it was used by the Royal Air Force and the United States Army Air Forces Twelfth and Fifteenth Air Forces both as an operational airfield as well as a command and control base. In addition, the airfield was used by the Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force (Aviazione Cobelligerante Italiana, or ACI), or Air Force of the South (Aeronautica del Sud), and the Balkan Air Force. After the war, it was turned over to the postwar Air Force of the Italian Republic (Aeronautica Militare Italiana).

In the 1960s, it was opened to civil flights and Alitalia schedules regular flights to Rome, Catania, Palermo, Ancona, Venice. The routes were later taken over by ATI, using a Fokker F27 airplane. When ATI put into operation the new DC-9-30 it became necessary to create a new runway, while the military complex was still used as passenger terminal.

In 1981, a new building was completed, originally intended to be used as a cargo terminal, but it became in fact the airport's new passenger terminal.

Development since the 1990s

In 1990, with the 1990 FIFA World Cup, the runway was extended and the terminal was upgraded, going through a further renovation in 2000. However, the traffic increase showed the infrastructural limitations of the airport and in 2002 the founding stone of the new passenger terminal was laid out. At the same time, flight infrastructures (aircraft parking areas, runway etc.) were upgraded. In 2005, the new terminal was completed and opened to passengers.^{[citation needed]}

In 2005, construction works for a new control tower began and they were completed the following year. In 2006, a further extension of the runway was begun, and in 2007, the planning of an extension of the passenger terminals was commissioned. They were upgraded in 2005–2006 with the opening of a new passenger terminal equipped with 4 jet bridges and a multistorey car park.^{[citation needed]}

Airlines and destinations

The following airlines operate regular scheduled, seasonal, and charter flights to and from Bari:^[3]

Airlines	Destinations
Air Cairo	Sharm El Sheikh
Air Dolomiti	Munich
Air France	Paris–Charles de Gaulle
Air Serbia	Seasonal: Belgrade
Austrian Airlines	Seasonal: Vienna
BH Air	Seasonal: Sofia
British Airways	Seasonal: London–Gatwick
Discover Airlines	Seasonal: Frankfurt
easyJet	Milan–Malpensa Seasonal: Basel/Mulhouse, Geneva (begins 4 May 2024),^[4] London–Gatwick, Nice, Paris–Charles de Gaulle
Edelweiss Air	Seasonal: Zurich
Eurowings	Seasonal: Cologne/Bonn, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Hannover,^[5] Stuttgart
Iberia	Seasonal: Madrid
ITA Airways	Milan–Linate, Rome–Fiumicino
Lufthansa	Frankfurt
Luxair	Luxembourg
Norwegian Air Shuttle	Seasonal: Copenhagen (begins 22 June 2024),^[6] Oslo, Stockholm–Arlanda (begins 4 May 2024)^[6]
Ryanair	Athens^[7] Beauvais, Bergamo, Berlin, Bologna, Budapest, Cagliari, Catania, Charleroi, Genoa, Karlsruhe/Baden-Baden, Katowice,^[8] Kraków, London–Stansted, Madrid, Málaga, Malta, Milan–Malpensa, Palermo, Pisa, Prague, Rome–Fiumicino, Sofia, Tel Aviv (resumes 2 June 2024),^[9] Tirana,^[10] Toulouse, Trieste, Turin, Valencia, Venice, Verona, Vienna, Warsaw–Modlin, Weeze Seasonal: Alghero, Alicante, Billund, Bordeaux, Dublin, Dubrovnik, Edinburgh, Girona (begins 2 July 2024),^[11]^[7] Ibiza, Kaunas, Maastricht,^[12] Marseille, Nuremberg, Porto,^[12] Poznań, Rhodes (begins 4 May 2024),^[13] Seville,^[12] Skiathos
Scandinavian Airlines	Seasonal: Copenhagen
Sky Alps	Seasonal: Mostar^[14]
Transavia	Amsterdam, Brussels (begins 27 June 2024)^[15] Seasonal: Paris–Orly
Turkish Airlines	Istanbul
Volotea	Florence Seasonal: Athens, Bilbao (begins 5 July 2024),^[16] Comiso (begins 5 July 2024),^[16] Corfu, Dubrovnik (begins 4 July 2024),^[16] Heraklion, Lyon, Málaga (begins 6 July 2024),^[16] Mykonos, Olbia, Preveza (begins 3 July 2024),^[16] Rhodes (begins 4 July 2024),^[16] Santorini, Skiathos, Split (begins 5 July 2024),^[16] Toulouse (begins 4 July 2024),^[17] Zakynthos
Vueling	Barcelona, Paris–Orly
Wizz Air	Bucharest–Otopeni, Budapest, Sofia, Timișoara, Tirana, Warsaw–Chopin Seasonal: Cluj-Napoca,^[18] Wrocław

Statistics

 

Departure area

 

Control tower

Annual passenger traffic at BRI airport. See Wikidata query.

Ground transportation

Road

The airport can be reached by the ring road of Bari and from the A14 motorway.

Rail

The Bari metropolitan railway service connects the Airport with the Bari Centrale railway station in the city centre.

Bus

AMTAB buses provide public transportation to the airport from the city centre (Line 16). Pugliairbus is a seasonal bus transportation service which operates interconnection service with Brindisi and Foggia airports. Pugliairbus also reaches touristic locations. Tempesta auto servizi also offers a shuttle between the airport and city centre.

Accidents and incidents

• On 6 August 2005, Tuninter Flight 1153, a Tuninter ATR 72 en route from Bari to Djerba, Tunisia, ditched into the Mediterranean Sea about 18 miles (29 km) from the city of Palermo. Sixteen of the thirty-nine people on board died. The accident resulted from engine fuel starvation. During maintenance the fuel quantity indicator (FQI) was changed using an FQI for an ATR 42 instead of an ATR 72.^[19]

See also

• Kraków John Paul II International Airport
• João Paulo II Airport Ponta Delgada (Azores)
• List of airports in Italy
• Brindisi Airport
• Port of Brindisi

References

1. "Statistics". Assaeroporti. (PDF) from the original on 17 March 2023. Retrieved 19 March 2023.
2. "Nel 2023 record passeggeri Aeroporti Puglia,quasi 10 milioni". Agenzia ANSA (in Italian). 9 January 2024. from the original on 9 January 2024. Retrieved 9 January 2024.
3. aeroportidipuglia.it - Bari - Destinations 15 December 2022 at the Wayback Machine www.aeroportidipuglia.it accessed 25 May 2022
4. "News for Airlines, Airports and the Aviation Industry | CAPA". from the original on 23 January 2024. Retrieved 23 January 2024.
5. "Eurowings NS24 Hanover / Nuremberg Network Expansion". AeroRoutes. from the original on 21 August 2023. Retrieved 21 August 2023.
6. "Norwegian NS24 Network Additions – 14NOV23". from the original on 14 November 2023. Retrieved 14 November 2023.
7. "Ryanair". from the original on 18 January 2021. Retrieved 27 July 2021.
8. https://www.fly4free.pl/nowe-trasy-z-katowic-od-258pln/
9. Lifshitz-Klieger, Iris (4 April 2024). "Irish low-cost carrier Ryanair to resume Israel operations". Ynetnews. Retrieved 6 April 2024.
10. "Ryanair NS24 Network Additions – 10DEC23". AeroRoutes. from the original on 12 December 2023. Retrieved 12 December 2023.
11. "Ryanair NS24 Network Expansion Summary – 04FEB24". from the original on 7 February 2024. Retrieved 7 February 2024.
12. "Ryanair NW23 Network Changes – 17SEP23". from the original on 18 September 2023. Retrieved 18 September 2023.
13. "Ryanair NS24 Network Additions – 10DEC23". from the original on 12 December 2023. Retrieved 12 December 2023.
14. https://www.flyingbosnian.blogspot.com/2024/02/skyalps-schedules-mostar-flights-launch.html 3 February 2024 at the Wayback Machine ^{[bare URL]}
15. "Transavia apre Bari-Bruxelles nel 2024". 20 September 2023. from the original on 29 September 2023. Retrieved 20 September 2023.
16. "Volotea Announces New Base in Bari, Italy". 14 December 2023. from the original on 15 December 2023. Retrieved 15 December 2023.
17. "Volotea apre una nuov base a Bari [...]" [Volotea gto open a new base in Bari [...]]. bari.corriere.it (in Italian). 28 November 2023.
18. "Wizz Air suspendă rute din București și Cluj Napoca în octombrie 2023". 28 September 2023. from the original on 28 September 2023. Retrieved 28 September 2023.
19. "Accident description". Aviation Safety Network. from the original on 17 December 2017. Retrieved 19 November 2022.

External links

  Media related to Bari Karol Wojtyła Airport at Wikimedia Commons

• Official website
• Accident history for BRI at Aviation Safety Network