Bosnia and Herzegovina is drafting plans for the development of up to three new airports, which will be located in Bihać, Brčko and Trebinje. The Bihać Airport project, which was initially stalled last year, has now received state backing and finances, while the project in Trebinje is making a comeback after initial plans for its development were scrapped in 2011.
The ambitious redevelopment of Bihać Airport in north-western Bosnia and Herzegovina, scheduled to commence last February, has been given support from the Federal government which will provide the necessary funding in order for construction to begin. A groundbreaking ceremony was cancelled in 2016 after the state snubbed the project and failed to provide the required funds. However, last month, the Federal Ministry for Transport and Communication transferred just over one million euros to the airport, which will be used for the development of project documentation, the installation of a parameter fence around the runway and supporting infrastructure, the construction of access roads and other bureaucratic procedures. "We have made the first step and now it is time for us to work hard and utilise the finances as outlined in our agreement with the ministry. I believe we are now on the right path and by using the best possible model we will build Bihać Airport", Elvedin Sedić, the General Manager of Bihać Airport, said.
Earlier this week, the Federal government noted it would provide the airport with an additional 1.9 million euros by the end of the year and guarantee further funding over the next four years. "We must continue to provide financial support for the airport because this region won't see a boom in tourism it deserves without an airport", the Bosniak member of the tripartite Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bakir Izetbegović, said. The Bihać-based Euroing company was responsible for the design of the terminal, while Turkey's Çelebi Aviation Holding, a ground handling services company, had previously expressed interest to partake in the project. Bihać is located near the Croatian border and is the country's eighth largest city.
The town of Brčko, located on the country's northern border with Croatia, also plans to build its own airport. A Slovenian consortium comprising of E-Grus, Savaprojekt and Arhitekt Šmid (which designed Maribor Airport's new terminal), have submitted their proposal for the construction of an international airport in Brčko. The group of companies have drafted project plans and conducted a feasibility study. According to its plans, the airport would have a single runway, while the project would be valued at 400 million euros. The consortium has suggested for the airport to be run under a concession agreement. "We are interested in cargo because Brčko is well connected. This is one of only a few cities which has rail, road and river transport. An airport is all that is left", a representative from E-Grus said. The government of the self-governing Brčko District added, "We will do everything on our behalf for this project to materialise".
Finally, the local government in Trebinje, in southern Bosnia and Herzegovina, has announced its intention to resume plans for its infamous airport project. Previously, authorities forked out 820.000 euros between 2009 and 2011 into project documentation for a 2.6 kilometre runway and a terminal capable of handling 260.000 passengers per year, only to give up on the idea two years later after naming the airport's General Manager and contracting an Austrian consultant to identify potential routes. However, this time around, the government has said that the study conducted by the Austrian consultant was incomplete and that it will invest a further 51.100 euros for a new development strategy. Tender procedures have already commenced. "The strategy should define the first phase of the development, which would include the construction of a 1.700 metre-long runway, which would be thirty metres wide. This size would cater for aircraft with the capacity to seat up to fifty passengers. In addition, the document must include plans for the construction of a terminal building, control tower, hangar, access roads and a car park", tender documents state.
Bosnia and Herzegovina currently boasts four international commercial airports - Sarajevo, Tuzla, Banja Luka and Mostar.
go Trebinje.. i think that two flights daily with Air Serbia would work great. many passangers are forced to fly to tivat or dubrovnik if they are going to the trebinje region..not to mention Mostar.
ReplyDeletesrecno za Trebinje
JU cant make Banja Luka a viable route and Istanbul work. I doubt Trebinje will be high on their priorities
DeleteBut YU-AMC thinks it will work
DeleteHe passes by 10, sometimes even 15 cars on the way to Trebinje
Hahaha
DeleteLOL!!!
DeleteHaahahaha
ReplyDeleteWould there not be an issue around landing because Bihac and Brcko are on/near the boarder?
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely no need for this. Bosnia has 4 airports which is enough. They should have invested this money into them.
ReplyDeleteThey are investing. SJJ is expanding its terminal, Tuzla is renovating...
DeleteThey are BARELY investing
DeleteSarajevo is (at least) 5h of driving away, Banja Luka is farther away from Bihac than Zadar or Zagreb, so there is a need for an airfield there!
DeleteBetter do something with Banja Luka.Shame that the airport has only flights to BEG.
ReplyDeleteThey are building a cargo depot there for meat exports. The issue is they no longer handle meat exports.... go figure
DeleteI meen they could attract some LCC.Maby Germania or Eurowings.That airport has a lot of potential and not just for cargo.
DeleteThe money they are giving to Bihac is from the air traffic development tax which you pay when flying to/from Sarajevo. I agree it should have been spent on something more worthwhile.
ReplyDelete"something more worthwhile" being?
DeleteKoje su to mudrolije.....svasta
ReplyDeleteAre there local elections in Bosnia at the moment?
ReplyDeleteNo, they were last year.
DeleteThe airport in Bihać could work out.
ReplyDeleteNo it could not.
DeleteWell in my opinion trebinje is way too close to DBV and TIV - there is zero point zero need for another commercial airport there.
DeleteIn the North you've got TZL very close but also BEG, OSI and even ZAG - zero point zero need.
Bihac makes most sense from all 3 suggestions however one cannot expect more than 100-150 thousand pax max - even in the long run. Maybe but only maybe 2 or 3 gastarbajter routes with ULCC could work but that's really it - could hardly justify such investment anyways and finally none of these airports would be viable. Rather all majorly loss making and a burden to all who'd have to finance them!
Sue every politician who comes forward with such insane idea - they have no interest in the development of these regions or of people living there but to steal money. Or in Trump's words:
Bad!
Crazy!
True dat, complete disaster.
DeleteZali bacene pare.
ReplyDeleteFour airports, which are strategically placed all around BiH is more than enough. We are talking about a poor, with a barely functioning federal structure. This is nothing more than payoffs, corruption, and at best a total waste of money. Disastrous.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely.
DeleteUnfortunately for us, it seems the exYU politicians have discovered airport projects as the newest cool method for stealing vast amounts of money.
Crooks.
DeleteNakon sto je Vlada potpuno upropastila banjalucki aerodrom, mozes racunati da u RS nema vise ni jedan.
DeleteI like the proposed design for Bihac Airport.
ReplyDeleteTuzla should have a priority to get a terminal like this.
DeleteAre there any elections this year in BIH?
ReplyDeleteBecause here in Macedonia every now and then when elections are near we hear about 'the Štip airport project'.Sometimes even Bitola and Strumica ....
So eventually BiH will have 7 operational airports - this is madness and will be very expensive!
ReplyDeleteJust a quick comparison with the rest:
Slovenia - 3
Serbia - 2
Macedonia - 2
Croatia - 9
Montenegro - 2
Romania - 17
Bulgaria - 4
If the capital city itself can barely handle 1 million pax, then imagine the 6 remaining airports! Stop this crazy idea, the country Will run bankrupt.
Megalomania is an issue in the Balkans.
DeleteSlovenia 3? Do you count Portoroz too?
DeleteYes, Anon 11:08.
DeleteIf he counts Mali Losinj in Croatia then he can count Maribor and Portoroz
DeletePortoroz is in same class as Varazdin or Vrsar.
DeletePortoroz je slican Losinju. Ne umanjuj ga s Vrsarom.
DeleteCorruption is the best friend of Balkan politics.
DeleteIf they find a private investor to build these then I don't mind but I'm not for wasting public money on such a project.
ReplyDeleteNot even then.
DeleteA kad krece izgradnja kosmodroma??
ReplyDeletePeople will probably throw sticks and stones at me but I do believe that the western part of Bosnia does need a functioning airport. Now Bihac might not be the best place for it. While Bosnia does have a lot of airports for its size people don't understand that the road infrastructure to these airports is quite poor and it takes hours by bus from western Bosnia to get there. Same goes for going to Zagreb or airports on the Croatian coast.
ReplyDeleteSo, instead of building a road network, which would serve all the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the plan is to build a large network of airports around the (relatively) small country.
DeleteBalkan logic never ceases to surprise me.
Don't forget that practically everyone in BiH has a private aeroplane. ;)
DeleteYou need to look to the future for when flying cars come.
DeleteI have heard so many stories of Turkish investors wanting to build airports in ex-Yu and nothing ever happens of it. The only exception is Zagreb through ADP.
ReplyDeleteJust for a comparison, the two italian north-eastern regions, Friuli Venezia Giulia and Veneto have all together 4 airports: Ronchi in FVG, and Venezia, Treviso and Verona in Veneto. The regions are very rich, counting together about 6 mil inhabitants.
ReplyDeleteYes but like you say, the key is that the region is rich.
DeleteI wanted to say that BiH doesn't need so many airports. I gave the comparison to make people think.
DeleteSo two rich italian regions with 6 million inhabitants are served by 4 airports.
DeleteTwo rich regions with more 3-4 times more tourists than inhabitants
DeleteVenice has an estimate of over 60.000 tourists daily
Crazy to think that every village in BiH should have an airport.
ReplyDeleteWhy not? Every part of the country should develop.
DeleteSo every part of BiH should have an airport? Huh, didn't think that developing a country is so easy. You build an airport and that's it :D
DeleteWithout EU aid bosnian economy is dead. What a development in Bosnia?
DeleteOT: Pula +40% in June. Bravo Istria, bravo Pula! :)
ReplyDelete+1
DeleteAre they redeveloping Golubic or Zeljava in Bihac?
ReplyDeleteGolubic of course. Where do you expect planes to park or land in Zeljava. Inside the mountain?
DeleteWell it would be a reason to come just to land at an airport which has part of its runway inside a mountain :D
DeleteThat is not true and there is a clear lack of vision and binational collaboration. Zeljava is well suited and located. Additionally, it already comprises of a lot of the needed infrastructure. Roads, many runways, aprons etc. Simply pick one suitable runway, repair it and build a small terminal. This airport should be jointly operated by both Croatia and Bosnia. There are several examples of a very fruitful airport collaboration even between countries with clashing political systems and views: Mexican/USA boarder commercial airport (sorry forgot the name of the city), or Basel/Mulhouse (EU and non EU country) in Europe.
DeleteIn Croatia this airport could cater for a large area between Zagreb&Karlovac almost to Rijeka and Zadar. Not even to mention whole West of BiH. It is also very close to one of most visited sights of whole exyu: Plitvice.
If politicians would do it right, this airport would not fail. There are actually loads of potential.
Ne mogu ni u najludjim snovima zamisliti funkcionalan aerodrom u BiH, mimo postojecih, koji bi imao iole smisla.
DeleteA niti u HR.
Mada, u HR ce uskoro morati razmisljati o novom aerodromu koji ce zamjeniti Splitski.
Nice and well spoken reply on int. cooperation. HR government ignored and even refused to discuss the issue....
DeleteŠta samo tri nova aerodroma?! Daj odmah...PET komada!
ReplyDeleteMoj favorit bi bio međunarodni aerodrom kakanj.
DeleteJa glasujem za Jajce
DeleteJa za petrovacko polje, tu je tokom drugpg svjetskog rata bio partizanski aerodrom.
DeleteWizz and Ryan don't fly to DBV and TIV. If Trebinje can build runway capable of hadling FR/W6 jets and charge 3 EUR fee like INI, they could grow faster than Tuzla and Nis.
ReplyDeleteSo even in best case some Wizz/FR flights are supposed to pay off the whole building costs plus all operating costs, just so that people in Dubrovnik/Tivat region also have some glorious Wizz Air or Ryanair flights? Seriously?
DeletePa moram zamjetiti kako ti matematika nije jaca strana
DeleteAjd molim te, izracunaj koliko letova dnevno bi LCC trebale imat s tih fantomskih aerodorma da bi se oni uopce isplatilo.
Three eur would allow LCCs to attract tourists from all over Europe in low season. It would also attract other airlines (at least seasonally) like Swiss did in INI. If Trebinje attracts just one third of combined DBV and TIV traffic in 5 years, it would get to one million passengers.
DeleteSave 3 Euro and make your way to Dubrovnik and Tivat. Cross border twice and add additional cost circa 30-50 Euro plus waste time. Yep - that concept will go nowhere
DeletePassengers bus from Vienna to Bratislava for much less than 50 Euro and shuttle bus from Trebinje airport to Dubrovnik or Tivat will be very cheap. People cross borders now to get to cheaper airports like TSR, and they waste time to fly from distant aiports like HHN or BVA. Concept is proven to work.
DeleteEuro travellers don't have any options now to fly from snowy Germany or Switzerland to sunny DBV or TIV in the winter for 20-25 Euro so they choose LCCs to Spain or Italy for a weekend or as a city break destination. South Adriatic desperatly needs more winter visitors and 20-30 eur LCC flights to cheap airport like Trebinje would bring hundreds of thousands of visitors.
Opet zabiravljas kako ti LCC letovi se obavljaju s aerodroma koji su sagradjeni davno prije pojave samih LCCa te ti LCCi nisu bazni promet tih aerodorma.
DeleteGraditi aerodrom koji svoju egzistenciju bazira je LCCima je krajnje neozbiljno.
Not to mention that there is 0 sense in B&H taxpayers subsidizing tourism in Croatia and Montenegro. If the entire point of building a money-losing airport is to bring tourists to Croatia and Montenegro so they spend money there, then who should pay for this?
DeleteComplete joke. Brčko Tuzla is what, 50 km away?
ReplyDeleteBrcko airport is a nonsense, but as long as feasilibility studies don´t cost taxpayer´s money....
ReplyDeleteNice to see that Trebinje has obviously received a dose of reality.
Finally, Bihac is the only one that is actually necessary. Any one that drove the 300km+ between Sarajevo and Bihac during the winter knows how badly it´s needed...
Much of the rationale peddled for these projects revolves around the fact (an it is a fact) that road and rail infrastructure in Bosnia and Herzegovina is poor. So why not build that?!? It's a disaster that a country of that size doesn't have a reasonable network of fast highways. A good road (may I even dream of a railroad) would be immeasurably more useful to the local population than a phantom airport 20 minutes of flight (that no-one would want to operate) and 400 million euros away. P.S. Bihac and Trebinje airports, in a different economic climate, just *might* make sense. But the money among the local population is just not there, the inbound tourists are also few, and the local business is none.
ReplyDeleteBut what about all the Andricgrad tourists?
DeleteThis money should be spent on the construction and development of the railway network in Bosnia rather than on new mini-airports. In this country poor domestic public transport is a bigger problem than international airports. Who will fly there if Mostar airport is empty and Banja Luka airport is almost empty too.
ReplyDeleteAnd we all forget that Brčko wants an airport to make it a cargo hub.
ReplyDeleteDid you know how much is ticket from Barcelona to Dbv in summer ?? 200 e one vay .. Can you imaginate offer. Air Serbia. Visiting Dubrovnik and Makarska Reviera in august for onley 50 e . Now you can tel me how no one Spanisch peoples dont want bay thats ticket???
ReplyDelete