Airport Ljubljana-Brnik

Location
Opened in 1963, the airport is about 18 miles north of downtown between Ljubljana and Kranj, near Brnik. By car use the highway A2/E61 between Kranj and Ljubljana and then follow the signs to the airport.

Rail and bus passengers head for Ljubljana and then from the central bus station take the hourly shuttle service to the airport. The journey time is about 45 minutes. Alternatively take the bus or train to the nearby town of Kranj and then the airport shuttle.

History
The former airport Brnik was opened on 24 December 1963 in former Yugoslavia with the flight from Ljubljana to Belgrade. Only two weeks later, the former Yugoslav airline JAT took up weekly scheduled flights from Ljubljana to Zadar and London-Heathrow. The airport was successful right form the beginning and in 1965 could already count a total of more than 130,000 passengers. In the same period, more than 15 companies were working or landing at the airport. As a result of the increasing popularity of package holidays, summer flights for tourists travelling to the Mediterranean were redirected to the nearby airport in the city of Paula in order to allow for an improved coordination of scheduled flights Ljubljana.

With this step and the further increase in scheduled flights, the runway was extended in 1971 to measure 2,200m in total, and a new terminal and a number of new aircraft hangars were also planned. Shortly after its completion in 1973, the Yugoslav Federal Aviation Commission inspected the airport and gave it the traffic rights of Zagreb airport, since this likewise had to be rebuilt.

The response of the population was enormous and within 2 months of this decision, passengers and freight volume doubled. In the following year, the structure and planning changed in favour of national destinations and traffic decreased by about 30% in a very short time. On June 30 1978 after 3 years of preparation, the airport in Ljubljana was completely closed to traffic for reconstruction. This time the runway was extended to a length of 3,300 meters. The control tower was also reconstructed to comply with newest standards.

During this phase of modernisation and reconstruction, all the traffic was redirected form Brnik to the nearby airports of Maribor, Pula and Zagreb. After only 3 years of construction and the ensuing complications for passengers, the airport was inaugurated on 20 December 1978 and reopened with an intercontinental flight from Ljubljana to New York . In the 1980s the number of passengers in Ljubljana increased to about 581,000 and by the time of the break up of the Yugoslav state had reached a total of approximately 753,000.

With the outbreak of the war in February 1992, air traffic came to a complete halt and could only be taken up again after independence. Due to the lacking passengers from present day Croatia, Bosnia and Serbia, passenger numbers fell dramatically in this year to 248,851. By 1995, the new Ljubljana Airport Authority was however able to build on its earlier success and demonstrated a total of 750,000 passengers annually.

As a result of the returning passengers the terminal building was expanded from 4,000 km2 to 6,000 km2. In 1998, British Airways as a political statement took up regular flights between London Gatwick and Ljubljana into its flight schedule, but was forced to give up the route again 2 years later due to lack of demand. In 2000, the parking area was extended as a result of growing use. In 2001, the Czech airline CSA began operating regular flights from Prague to Ljubljana within its seasonal timetable. Only a year later, the Yugoslav airline JAT was also again operating scheduled flights between Belgrade and Ljubljana and in the same year, the private Israeli charter company Israir began to fly holidaymakers from Tel Aviv to the Slovenian and Croatian Mediterranean coast.

In 2004 the so-called "low cost" airlines arrived in the Slovenian capital, when the English airline EasyJet was given landing and take-off rights in Ljubljana. For the first time, the airport could count more than 1 million passengers. Today, more than 1.3 million passengers fly annually from Ljubljana to Europe, to the former Yugoslav republics and to the Middle East. Since 2006, there have been regular disruptions at the airport. In the near future, a new departure terminal and eight additional boarding bridges are in planning as well as a large shopping area and a fully modified road layout.