Stralsund–Barth Airport , ''Ostseeflughafen Stralsund-Barth'' in German, is a regional airport serving the city of

Stralsund Stralsund (; Swedish: ''Strålsund''), officially the Hanseatic City of Stralsund (German: ''Hansestadt Stralsund''), is the fifth-largest city in the northeastern German federal state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania after Rostock, Schwerin, Neub ...

and the town of Barth, Germany. It is located in a popular tourism area at the Baltic Sea (German: ''Ostsee'') and features no scheduled traffic. However, it is extensively used for general aviation including upmarket charter traffic as well as

gliding Gliding is a recreational activity and competitive air sport in which pilots fly unpowered aircraft known as gliders or sailplanes using naturally occurring currents of rising air in the atmosphere to remain airborne. The word ''soaring'' is al ...

. Previously, the airport was served by

Interflug Interflug GmbH (german: Interflug Gesellschaft für internationalen Flugverkehr m.b.H.; ) was the national airline of the German Democratic Republic from 1963 to 1990. Based in East Berlin, it operated scheduled and chartered flights to European ...

, which existed from 1963 to 1991.

History

The airport used to be an airfield of the Luftwaffe and was inaugurated in 1936. After World War II it was shut down. Commercial passenger traffic began in 1957, when the airfield was extended with new passenger facilities. Lufthansa of East Germany inaugurated routes to the cities of

East Berlin East Berlin was the ''de facto'' capital city of East Germany from 1949 to 1990. Formally, it was the Allied occupation zones in Germany, Soviet sector of Berlin, established in 1945. The American, British, and French sectors were known as ...

, Leipzig,

Erfurt Erfurt () is the capital and largest city in the Central German state of Thuringia. It is located in the wide valley of the Gera river (progression: ), in the southern part of the Thuringian Basin, north of the Thuringian Forest. It sits in ...

and Dresden. Until 1975 the airport was then served by

, providing leisure traffic throughout the

GDR East Germany, officially the German Democratic Republic (GDR; german: Deutsche Demokratische Republik, , DDR, ), was a country that existed from its creation on 7 October 1949 until its dissolution on 3 October 1990. In these years the state ...

. Then, the airport was closed for passenger operations due to political reasons. Between 1975 and 1990, Barth was the base for Interflug's agricultural aviation in the

Rostock district Rostock (german: Landkreis Rostock) is a district in the north of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. It is bounded by (from the west and clockwise) the district Nordwestmecklenburg, the Baltic Sea, the district-free city Rostock and the districts Vo ...

. After the

Reunification of Germany German reunification (german: link=no, Deutsche Wiedervereinigung) was the process of re-establishing Germany as a united and fully sovereign state, which took place between 2 May 1989 and 15 March 1991. The day of 3 October 1990 when the Ge ...

, Stralsund–Barth Airport has been extended and modernisied in several stages. However, scheduled traffic did not return due to the runway being too short for most modern passenger airplanes. After intensive modernization, the airport was finally completed on 25 April 2012. A new control tower and terminal were built, the runway was extended to 1,450m. The new concept is targeted on the establishment of a hot spot for the Offshore wind power industry in the Baltic Sea. An airport is needed to build the wind parks, secure maintenance and to be in place in case of an accident.

References

External links

Official website
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Stralsund-Barth Airport Barth Airport

Buildings and structures in Vorpommern-Rügen Stralsund

History

See also

References

External links