Olbia Costa Smeralda Airport

Olbia Costa Smeralda Airport Aeroporto di Olbia-Costa Smeralda
IATA: OLB – ICAO: LIEO
Summary
Airport type	Public
Owner/Operator	Geasar S.p.A.
Serves	Olbia
Location	Olbia, Italy
Hub for	Meridiana
Elevation AMSL	37 ft / 11 m
Coordinates	40°53′09″N 09°31′01″E / 40.88583°N 9.51694°ECoordinates: 40°53′09″N 09°31′01″E / 40.88583°N 9.51694°E
Website	www.geasar.it/eng/airport
Map
OLB Location of airport in Sardinia
Runways
Direction Length Surface m ft 05/23 2,445 8,025 Concrete / Asphalt
Statistics (2015)
Passengers 2,240,016 Passenger change 14–15 +5.3% Aircraft movements 28,272 Movements change 14–15 -1%
Source: Italian AIP at EUROCONTROL[1] Statistics from Assaeroporti[2]

Olbia Costa Smeralda Airport (Italian: Aeroporto di Olbia-Costa Smeralda) (IATA: OLB, ICAO: LIEO) is an airport in Olbia, Sardinia. It is the primary operating base for Italian airline Meridiana whose headquarters are located at the airport. It mostly handles seasonal holiday flights from destinations in Europe.

Olbia Airport is managed by Geasar S.p.A.

History

A military airfield was opened at Olbia (then Terranova Pausania) in 1921, and a seaplane base was inaugurated close to the Isola Bianca harbour in 1927, although poor loads from the island on the flights to Ostia and Cagliari led to the service's stop in Terranova being discontinued in 1929. The airfield and seaplane base were targeted by Allied bombing in World War II, and the Germans opened another airfield 4.5 miles west of the town, which was renamed Olbia in 1945. Commercial flights gradually returned and in 1963 the Olbia-based airline Alisarda was formed. It successfully expanded its route network, introducing jet flights in 1972, and it was renamed Meridiana in 1991. However, the introduction of jet aircraft necessitated the building of a larger airport nearer the city; the current airport was completed in 1974.

Following 3 years of work, a new terminal covering 42,000 square metres and capable of handling 4.5 million passengers per year was unveiled on June 6, 2004. Costing a total of €81 million, the structure was designed by Willem Brouwer Architects and incorporated the original terminal building, which was developed into a 3000-square metre retail area. The new building has 40 check-in desks and ten boarding gates, five of which are equipped with jet bridges. It contains a wide variety of shops and restaurants, a wine bar, a small art gallery, and indoor garden areas featuring local flora.

The airport is home to the Tourist Management department of the University of Sassari (North Sardinia).

Airlines and destinations

Airlines	Destinations
airBaltic	Seasonal: Riga
Air Berlin	Düsseldorf, Munich Seasonal: Berlin–Tegel, Cologne/Bonn, Nuremberg, Stuttgart, Zürich
Alitalia operated by Darwin Airline	Seasonal: Pisa
Alitalia operated by Alitalia CityLiner	Seasonal: Milan-Malpensa
Austrian Airlines	Seasonal: Vienna[3]
BH Air	Seasonal charter: Sofia[4]
British Airways	Seasonal: London–Heathrow[5]
Brussels Airlines	Seasonal: Brussels
easyJet	Milan–Malpensa Seasonal: Amsterdam,[6] Berlin–Schönefeld, Bristol, London–Gatwick, London–Luton, Lyon, Manchester, Naples,[7] Nice, Paris-Charles de Gaulle, Paris–Orly, Toulouse, Venice-Marco Polo[8]
easyJet Switzerland	Seasonal: Basel/Mulhouse, Geneva
Edelweiss Air	Seasonal: Zürich
Etihad Regional operated by Darwin Airline	Seasonal: Lugano, Geneva[9]
Eurowings	Seasonal: Salzburg (begins 29 March 2017)[10]
Germanwings	Seasonal: Cologne/Bonn, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Stuttgart
Helvetic Airways	Seasonal: Bern
Iberia operated by Air Nostrum	Seasonal: Madrid
Lufthansa Regional operated by Air Dolomiti	Seasonal: Munich
Lufthansa Regional operated by Lufthansa CityLine	Seasonal: Frankfurt
Meridiana	Bologna, Milan–Linate, Naples, Rome–Fiumicino Seasonal: Bari, Bergamo, Catania, Florence, Genoa, Kiev–Boryspil, London–Gatwick, Madrid,[11] Milan–Malpensa, Marseille, Moscow–Domodedovo, Nice, Tel Aviv–Ben Gurion, Turin, Venice, Verona
Mistral Air	Seasonal: Ancona Seasonal charter: Mostar
Niki	Seasonal: Graz,[12] Salzburg, Vienna
Nordwind Airlines	Seasonal charter: Novosibirsk
Norwegian Air Shuttle	Seasonal: Copenhagen, Oslo–Gardermoen, Stockholm–Arlanda
People's Viennaline	Seasonal charter: Vienna
Scandinavian Airlines	Seasonal: Copenhagen (begins 24 June 2017)[13]
SkyWork Airlines	Seasonal: Bern
SmartWings operated by Travel Service[14]	Seasonal: Prague
SmartWings operated by Travel Service Slovakia[14]	Seasonal: Bratislava
Swiss International Air Lines	Seasonal: Geneva
Thomas Cook Airlines	Seasonal charter: London–Gatwick
Thomas Cook Airlines Belgium	Seasonal: Brussels[15]
Transavia	Seasonal: Amsterdam
Transavia France	Seasonal charter: Paris–Orly
TUIfly Belgium[16]	Seasonal: Brussels
Volotea	Seasonal: Bari, Bordeaux, Genoa, Nantes, Naples, Palermo, Strasbourg, Turin, Venice, Verona
Vueling	Seasonal: Barcelona

References

1. "EAD Basic - Error Page". ead.eurocontrol.int.
2. "Statistiche Dicembre 2014". assaeroporti.com.
3. Austrian Airlines Vienna-Olbia
4. "Search direct flights". sofia-airport.bg.
5. "British Airways, voli estivi su Londra da Cagliari e Olbia". TravelQuotidiano.
6. "easyJet announces six new routes from Amsterdam and strengthens its links between The Netherlands and the UK". EasyJet. 14 October 2014.
7. "New and dropped routes". Easyjet.
8. "easyJet to Launch Venice Base in 2016". airlineroute.net.
9. "Voli da Ginevra, Lugano, Zurigo, Cagliari, Firenze, Olbia, Roma, Venezia, Biarritz, Ibiza e Valencia - Etihad Regional". Etihad regional.
10. "Schneller Ausbau des Standorts Salzburg: Eurowings fliegt ab Frühjahr kommenden Jahres neu auch nach Palma de Mallorca, Olbia, Thessaloniki, Dubrovnik und nach Split / Flüge sind ab heute buchbar" [Fast expansion of Salzburg base: Eurowings from spring next year will fly also to Palma de Mallorca, Olbia, Thessaloniki, Dubrovnik and Split / Flights on sale from today] (in German). Eurowings. 15 September 2016. Retrieved 16 September 2016.
11. "Meridiana - Trova ed acquista il tuo volo". meridiana.it.
12. "NIKI Plans New European Markets in S16". airlineroute.net.
13. http://www.routesonline.com/news/38/airlineroute/269288/sas-adds-new-european-routes-in-s17/
14. "SmartWings Contact". smartwings.com.
15. Thomas Cook Belgium begins Brussels Olbia service S14
16. "Jetairfly Flight Plan". Jetairfly.

External links

Media related to Olbia Costa Smeralda Airport at Wikimedia Commons

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