Rome Urbe Airport ( it, Aeroporto di Roma-Urbe, ) is a small civilian

airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surfa ...

Rome , established_title = Founded , established_date = 753 BC , founder = King Romulus (legendary) , image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg , map_caption ...

, situated in the northern part of the city, between

Via Salaria The Via Salaria was an ancient Roman road in Italy. It eventually ran from Rome (from Porta Salaria of the Aurelian Walls) to ''Castrum Truentinum'' ( Porto d'Ascoli) on the Adriatic coast, a distance of 242 km. The road also passed throug ...

and the

Tiber River The Tiber ( ; it, Tevere ; la, Tiberis) is the third-longest river in Italy and the longest in Central Italy, rising in the Apennine Mountains in Emilia-Romagna and flowing through Tuscany, Umbria, and Lazio, where it is joined by the Ri ...

, about 2.7 NM (5 km, 3.1 mi) inside the Greater Ring Road (Italian:

Grande Raccordo Anulare The GRA or Grande Raccordo Anulare (literally, "Great Ring Junction") is a toll-free, ring-shaped long orbital motorway that encircles Rome. GRA is one of the most important roads in Rome, and traffic reaches 160,000 vehicles per day as of 20 ...

or GRA), the circular motorway around the city.

History

The airport was inaugurated in Benito Mussolini's presence in 1928, with the name "Littorio Airport" (the name was chosen by Mussolini himself). Until

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

it was the main civilian airport in Italy, and the base for the Italian national airline

Ala Littoria Ala Littoria S.A. was the Italian national airline that operated during the fascist regime in the 1930s and 1940s. History ''Ala Littoria'' was formed by a merger of Società Aerea Mediterranea (SAM), Società Anonima Navigazione Aerea (SANA) ...

. Inside the perimeter also a

racetrack A race track (racetrack, racing track or racing circuit) is a facility built for racing of vehicles, athletes, or animals (e.g. horse racing or greyhound racing). A race track also may feature grandstands or concourses. Race tracks are also use ...

was constructed, named Autodromo del Littorio ("Littorio Racetrack"). In 1931 a car/plane challenge took place on the racetrack inside the airport: Vittorio Suster, piloting a Caproni Ca.100, defeated

Tazio Nuvolari Tazio Giorgio Nuvolari (; 16 November 1892 – 11 August 1953) was an Italian racing driver. He first raced motorcycles and then concentrated on sports cars and single-seaters. A resident of Mantua, he was known as 'Il Mantovano Volante' ( ...

, who drove an Alfa Romeo 8C 2300. Heavily damaged by bombardments during the war, the airport was reactivated with the current name in the first postwar years. But just a few years later the commercial activity was transferred to the Ciampino Airport: since that moment the Rome Urbe Airport turned mostly into a facility for

flying club A flying club or aero club is a not-for-profit, member-run organization that provides its members with affordable access to aircraft. Many clubs also provide flight training, flight planning facilities, pilot supplies and associated services, as ...

activity, touristic flights and

air taxi An air taxi is a small commercial aircraft that makes short flights on demand. In 2001 air taxi operations were promoted in the United States by a NASA and aerospace industry study on the potential Small Aircraft Transportation System (SATS) ...

. It is currently the base for the Aeroclub di Roma (Rome's flying club). In 1995 FAR Airlines carried out several trial landings with a de Havilland Dash 7 STOL airliner acquired from

Tyrolean Airways Tyrolean Airways, officially ''Tyrolean Airways Tiroler Luftfahrt GmbH'', was an Austrian regional airline based in Innsbruck with its hub at Vienna International Airport and its homebase at Innsbruck Airport. It was owned by the Lufthansa Grou ...

. Their plan to link Urbe to several Italian cities failed when the company ceased operations shortly thereafter. In 2010, thanks to the investment of €800.000 by the

ENAC The epithelial sodium channel (ENaC), (also known as amiloride-sensitive sodium channel) is a membrane-bound ion channel that is selectively permeable to sodium ions (). It is assembled as a heterotrimer composed of three homologous subunits α ...

(the civil aviation authority of Italy, that manages the airport) a new terminal was opened for

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes ...

s. On 18 September 1997 the airport was the scene for a U2 concert, part of their Pop Mart Tour: a 70,000 audience attended the event

Access

The Rome Urbe Airport can be reached with public transport by

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...

or by

train In rail transport, a train (from Old French , from Latin , "to pull, to draw") is a series of connected vehicles that run along a railway track and transport people or freight. Trains are typically pulled or pushed by locomotives (often ...

: the Nuovo Salario Station (FR1 line) is 400 m from the airport.

References

{{authority control Airports in Italy Airports in Rome Buildings and structures in Lazio