Airport Lugano-Agno

Location
Opened in 1938, the airport is near the town of Agno, about 4 km or 2 miles west of Lugano. Motorists please use the highway 2, exit Lugano-Nord to access the airport.

Between downtown Lugano and the airport there is a regular shuttle service.

There is also a regular train service between Lugano and Agno operated by the private railway Ferrovie Luganesi (FLP), with a daily service between Lugano and Ponte Tresa. Agno train station is about 1 km which is less than half a mile south of the airport grounds. All current departure times are available locally or on the internet.

History
Aviation history in Lugano started as early as at the beginnings of the last century, when several enthusiastic pioneers from Tessin used the grass runway in the southern community of Marzio for their first flight attempts. In the 1930s, the search began for an appropriate airfield for civil scheduled flights, as the runway in Marzio was unsuitable due to its uneven surface and the ensuing danger of accidents. In the end, a suitable place was found slightly to the north by the lakes near the community of Agno, which has been the location of the airfield since then. In 1936, the Lugano flight association took over the airfield and immediately began to plan a 1 km (0.62 miles) long and 100 m (300 ft) wide runway, along with constructing an airport building. Building work began one summer later and, thanks to credit from the Swiss aviation ministry amounting to 20,000 Swiss franks, could be completed in 1938. During the Second World War and shortly afterwards, air traffic in Lugano was interrupted.

In 1947, thanks to another gift of 4,000 Swiss franks from the community of Lugano, further plans to develop the airport could be forged. At the beginning of the 1960s, work on renewing the out of date runway and the airport building was begun. However, only a short time later in the year 1963, a disagreement broke out because the operator and the owner of the grounds did not want to renew the contract. In 1966, the airport management granted a user licence and then reclaimed the grounds. Despite this, authorisation by the airport management for civil air traffic was only finally granted eight years later.

The boom at the airport eventually occurred in 1983, as only at that time did Crossair (now no longer in operation) operate flights from Lugano to Zürich, Bern, Basel, Venice, Nice, Florence, Rome, London, Monaco, Frankfurt, Naples and Bologna. For this reason the runway was extended by a further 350 metres (1000 ft). In the meantime, the airport can count 200,000 departing passengers a year.