The airport in Bihać is one of the biggest investments in the Una-Sana Canton in recent years. During the last year, work was accelerated on obtaining the necessary documentation and permits and the expropriation process, and if everything goes according to plan, it is estimated that the first planes could land in three years.
The construction of the airport in Bihać would revive the economy and improve the development of tourism, but also make it easier for the numerous diaspora to come home. It is a strategic project for the whole of Bosnia and Herzegovina, says the director of this company, according to whom the first flights could be expected in three years. Optimism without coverage or reality?
ANEL HADžIĆ, director of JP “Aerodrom Bihać”
“As for the land for the construction of the facility, about 92% has been completed, there are still 8% of plots left to round off the cadastral part where the construction of facilities such as the runway, stand, passenger terminal, control tower, technical block will be carried out. .”
In 2015, when the company was founded, the airport did not have even a centimeter of its own land, Hadžić reminded. Everything that has been done so far has been financed by the funds of the Government of the Federation of BiH, however, without a foreign investor, it will be difficult to bring the project to an end.
ELVEDIN SEDIĆ, mayor of Bihać
“We have already held talks with several investors, signed memorandum on cooperation, exchange of project-technical information with some, and went quite far with one to the extent that we have guarantees that they are interested in investing in the airport project.”
However, the construction of an airport in Bihać for experts in the field of civil aviation is nonsense, for the reason that there are nearby airports in Banja Luka, Zadar and Zagreb with routes that, they say, Bihać will never have.
ALEN ŠĆURIC, civil aviation expert
“It is nonsense to spend money on an airport that will have neither passengers nor frequencies. A clear example is Morava, where more than 40 million euros were spent, 50 employees are employed, and the airport only has two flights per week. And 500 to 800 passengers per month. It’s less than a country bus station. Why would anyone spend so much money on that?”
Anyway, if you ask the people of Bihac, they would be more than happy to have an airport built in their town.
