Pančevo Airport

Airport

LYPA

Location of the airport in Serbia

Runways

Direction	Length		Surface
Direction	m	ft	Surface
13L/31R	1,000	3,281	Grass

Pančevo Airport (Аеродром Панчево or Aerodrom Pančevo) (ICAO: LYPA) is an airport near the city of Pančevo, Serbia near Belgrade. The airport is mostly used for general aviation operations. It has a single grass runway 1,000 metres long and 60 metres wide.

The airport is also used by Utva Aviation Industry, a manufacturer of light sporting and training aircraft also located in Pančevo, for testing its aircraft.

History

On 15 March 1923, aircraft of the Franko-Rumen company started operations from Pančevo airport. A few days later on 25 March, services between Paris and Istanbul via Pančevo commenced, the first international flights to or from Belgrade. On 9 September the same year, the first aircraft took off on a scheduled service from Belgrade to Bucharest. This was also the first commercial night flight in the history of aviation. CFRNA (Compagnie franco-roumaine de navigation aérienne) decided that flying at night was the only way for its aircraft operating on the Paris-Belgrade-Bucharest-Istanbul service to beat the famous Orient Express train to Istanbul.

Franco-Roumaine changed its name to CIDNA (Compagnie internationale de navigation aérienne) in 1925, which used Pančevo Airport until May 1927.