Sarajevo International Airport - History

History

First regular flights from Sarajevo to Belgrade and Zagreb started in 1935 from an airfield in the suburb of Butmir, near Sarajevo. The airfield remained in use all the way until 1969. The need for a new airport in Sarajevo, with an asphalt-concrete runway, was acknowledged in the mid 1960s when JAT, Yugoslav national carrier at that time, began acquiring jet planes. The construction of the airport began in 1966 at its present location, not far from the old one.

The Sarajevo Airport opened on June 2, 1969 for domestic traffic. In 1970 Frankfurt became the first international destination served. Most of the time the airport was a 'feeder' airport where passengers embarked for flights to Zagreb and Belgrade on their way to international destinations. Over time the traffic volume steadily grew from 70,000 to 400,000 passengers a year. The first renovation came for the 1984 Winter Olympic Games, when the runway was extended by 200 meters, the navigation system was improved, and a new terminal building was built, designed for 1 million passengers a year.

At the beginning of the Bosnian war the airport was put under control of Yugoslav federal army (JNA). When the regular flights were stopped the JNA evacuated some 30,000 people, mostly women and children, who were fleeing clashes in Sarajevo; the first humanitarian aid from the US and France arrived in this period too. After JNA left, the airport was for a while under control of Bosnian Serb forces and in June 1992 they handed over the airport to the UN to use it for humanitarian purposes (UN Security Council Resolution 757). In the biggest humanitarian operation in history of the UN that followed, during the Bosnian war, some 13,000 flights were carried out and over 160,000 tons of international humanitarian aid was delivered to the besieged city of Sarajevo.

The airport re-opened to civilian air traffic on August 16, 1996 and has since been renovated and slowly returned to its former glory. On 18 October 2005, Paddy Ashdown, the High Representative of Bosnia and Herzegovina suspended a decision by Bosnian authorities to name the airport after Alija Izetbegović, the first President of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Citing his reasons, the High Representative stated that such a renaming might undermine the reconciliation process by alienating non-Bosniak citizens.