Split Airport ( hr, Zračna luka Split; ), also known as Resnik Airport ( hr, Zračna luka Resnik), is the
international airport
An international airport is an airport with customs and border control facilities enabling passengers to travel between countries around the world. International airports are usually larger than domestic airports and they must feature longer ...
serving the city of
Split
Split(s) or The Split may refer to:
Places
* Split, Croatia, the largest coastal city in Croatia
* Split Island, Canada, an island in the Hudson Bay
* Split Island, Falkland Islands
* Split Island, Fiji, better known as Hạfliua
Arts, enterta ...
,
Croatia
, image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg
, image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg
, anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, capit ...
. It is located from Split, on the west side of Kaštela Bay, in the town of
Kaštela
Kaštela (;) is a town in Split-Dalmatia County. The town is an agglomeration of seven individual settlements which are administered as a single municipality with populations individually ranging from 3,000 to 7,000 residents. The town is locat ...
, and extending into the adjacent town of
Trogir
Trogir (; historically known as Traù (from Dalmatian, Venetian and Italian: ); la, Tragurium; Ancient Greek: Τραγύριον, ''Tragyrion'' or Τραγούριον, ''Tragourion'') is a historic town and harbour on the Adriatic coast in S ...
.
In 2019, the airport was the second busiest in Croatia after
Zagreb Airport
Zagreb Franjo Tuđman Airport ( hr, Zračna luka Franjo Tuđman Zagreb) or Zagreb Airport ( hr, Zračna luka Zagreb) () is an international airport serving Zagreb, Croatia. It is the largest and busiest airport in Croatia. In 2019 it handled 3. ...
handling 3.3 million passengers. The airport was the busiest in Croatia in 2021 handling 1.57 million passengers, surpassing Zagreb Airport for the first time. It is a major destination for leisure flights during the European summer holiday season and an important seasonal base for
Croatia Airlines
Croatia Airlines Ltd. is the state-owned flag carrier airline of Croatia. Its headquarters are in Buzin near Zagreb and operates domestic and international services mainly to European destinations. Its main hub is Zagreb International Airport wi ...
that offers flights to European cities such as
Athens
Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...
,
Frankfurt
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...
,
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
and
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
.
History
The first grass airfield was located in
Sinj
Sinj (; it, Signo; german: Zein) is a town in the continental part of Split-Dalmatia County, Croatia. The town itself has a population of 11,478 and the population of the administrative municipality, which includes surrounding villages, is 24 ...
and the first commercial route was opened in 1931 by the Yugoslav airline
Aeroput
Aeroput () was an airline and flag carrier of Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Yugoslavia from 1927 until 1948.
Society for Air traffic List of legal entity types by country#Serbia, AD Aeroput was the first Serbian company for civil air traffic, which was ...
. It linked
Zagreb
Zagreb ( , , , ) is the capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Croatia#List of cities and towns, largest city of Croatia. It is in the Northern Croatia, northwest of the country, along the Sava river, at the southern slop ...
with
Belgrade
Belgrade ( , ;, ; Names of European cities in different languages: B, names in other languages) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city in Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers a ...
through
Rijeka
Rijeka ( , , ; also known as Fiume hu, Fiume, it, Fiume ; local Chakavian: ''Reka''; german: Sankt Veit am Flaum; sl, Reka) is the principal seaport and the third-largest city in Croatia (after Zagreb and Split). It is located in Primor ...
, Split and
Sarajevo
Sarajevo ( ; cyrl, Сарајево, ; ''see Names of European cities in different languages (Q–T)#S, names in other languages'') is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Bosnia and Herzegovina, with a population of 275,524 in its a ...
, and maintained this route until the start of the
Second World War
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 opposin ...
.
[Drustvo za Vazdusni Saobracaj A D – Aeroput (1927–1948)](_blank)
at europeanairlines.no These flights connected Split either by its Divulje seaplane station, or by the Sinj airfield.
In the sixties, the airport was relocated from Sinj to
Resnik. The new airport complex, designed by architect Darko Stipevski (Tehnika, Zagreb), was opened on 25 November 1966. The apron had dimensions of only 200 x 112 m and 6 parking positions with a planned capacity of 150,000 passengers. In 1968, passenger numbers already stood at 150,737 and in 1969 at 235,000. In 1967, the apron was extended for the first time to accommodate 10 aircraft.
A new larger terminal building designed by architect Branko Gruica (Projektant, Mostar) was constructed and opened in 1979 to accommodate traffic for the 8th Mediterranean Games held in Split in September of that year. The largest pre-war passenger numbers were achieved in 1987 totalling 1,151,580 passengers and 7,873 landings.
In 1991, the passenger figures dropped to nearly zero, as the war in the former
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
broke out. In the years that followed, most of the traffic were
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
and UN cargo planes, such as the
C-5 Galaxy
The Lockheed C-5 Galaxy is a large military transport aircraft designed and built by Lockheed, and now maintained and upgraded by its successor, Lockheed Martin. It provides the United States Air Force (USAF) with a heavy intercontinental-ran ...
,
MD-11
The McDonnell Douglas MD-11 is an American tri-jet wide-body airliner manufactured by American McDonnell Douglas (MDC) and later by Boeing.
Following DC-10 development studies, the MD-11 program was launched on December 30, 1986.
Assembly of t ...
,
Boeing 747
The Boeing 747 is a large, long-range wide-body airliner designed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes in the United States between 1968 and 2022.
After introducing the 707 in October 1958, Pan Am wanted a jet times its size, t ...
and
C-130 Hercules
The Lockheed C-130 Hercules is an American four-engine turboprop military transport aircraft designed and built by Lockheed Corporation, Lockheed (now Lockheed Martin). Capable of using unprepared runways for takeoffs and landings, the C-130 ...
. After 1995, the civilian traffic figures began rising again, and eventually surpassed the 1987 record in 2008.
In 2005, the terminal got a major facelift by architect
Ivan Vulić
Ivan Vulić (born 16 November 1956) is a Croatian architect. He graduated from the Gymnasium Vladimir Nazor in Zadar in 1975 and enrolled in Faculty of Architecture, University of Zagreb, Faculty of Architecture at University of Zagreb, where he ...
(VV-Projekt, Split) adding one more gate, the glass façade, as well as the award-winning Airport entrance structure consisting of steel/fabric "trees" illuminated by multi-colour
LED
A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor Electronics, device that Light#Light sources, emits light when Electric current, current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy i ...
s.
The new
apron
An apron is a garment that is worn over other clothing to cover the front of the body. The word comes from old French ''napron'' meaning a small piece of cloth, however over time "a napron" became "an apron", through a linguistics process cal ...
designed by Ivan Vulić, Ivan Radeljak and Mate Žaja was constructed in 2011 with a capacity slightly over the old one but with better security conditions. The cost of this investment was €13 million leading to 34,000 m
2 of new parking space for aircraft as well as space for future administrative works below the apron. The lower level houses warehouses, workshops, offices and other objects that will support the new 34,500 m
2, HRK 455 million terminal building that is being built next to it. New apron features an unusual sound barrier on the south side which can be closed when an aircraft is close by and opened in all other times to allow for fairly unobstructed view of the Adriatic sea from the terminal building.
The airport's busiest time are the months of June, July and August due to a large influx of tourists for the European summer holiday period. Weekends are the busiest part of the week with more than 200 flights and some 50,000 passengers.
On the grounds of the airport there are some 1000 olive trees.
Expansion (2019)
Due to significant increase in passengers numbers, especially during the summer months, an expansion project was completed in summer of 2019, adding more than three times the floor space of the original terminal building and increasing the capacity to 5 million passengers per year. Original terminal has been refurbished and is still being used for some international departures, while check in, all domestic departures as well as both international and domestic arrivals including baggage claim is located in the new areas.
As a part of the expansion project, an enclosed bridge was built over the state road
D409, taking passengers to the newly built parking lot, bus terminal and rental car facilities.
The decision not to include any jet bridges in the new expansion has been justified because of limited apron space as well as the fact that majority of the airlines at the airport are
low-cost carrier
A low-cost carrier or low-cost airline (occasionally referred to as '' no-frills'', ''budget'' or '' discount carrier'' or ''airline'', and abbreviated as ''LCC'') is an airline that is operated with an especially high emphasis on minimizing op ...
s.
Airlines and destinations
The following airlines operate regular scheduled and charter flights at Split Airport:
Statistics
Transport links
Bus
Split Airport can be reached from Split (and Trogir, where indicated) by
public buses:
*''Promet'' line no. 37 (Split-Airport-Trogir and Trogir-Airport-Split), terminating at the Sukoišan bus terminal in Split (about 10 minutes walking from the old town, and 20 minutes from the main bus/railway station), departing every 20 minutes on weekdays and every 30 minutes on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays
*''Promet'' line no. 2 (Split-Strinje-Airport)
The airport is also easily reachable by shuttles, taxis or private cars. Numerous car rental companies are available on the site.
Ship
A
catamaran
A Formula 16 beachable catamaran
Powered catamaran passenger ferry at Salem, Massachusetts, United States
A catamaran () (informally, a "cat") is a multi-hulled watercraft featuring two parallel hulls of equal size. It is a geometry-stab ...
service between the airport and
Split harbour is available every 90 minutes in the peak tourist season (15 July – 30 September) and with lower frequency through October. Another line connecting the airport two additional times daily with Split harbour and
Bol on
Brač island is available from June to mid-September.
Rail
The airport is linked onto the
Split suburban railway
The Split Metro ( hr, Splitski metro) is a suburban railway network in Split, Croatia. The railway was opened on refurbished existing M604 tracks on December 10, 2006. It consists of one line serving seven stations, running from Split centre to Ka ...
with a ''Promet'' bus line running eight times daily between the nearest train station (Kaštel Stari) and the airport with a joint ticket.
According to Split city administration plans, starting from 2025–6 the Split suburban railway will be extended to the airport.
References
External links
Official website
{{authority control
Airports in Croatia
Airports established in 1966
1966 establishments in Yugoslavia
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 surface ...
Buildings and structures in Split-Dalmatia County
Transport in Split-Dalmatia County