Guglielmo Marconi Airport of Bologna

Bologna-Borgo Panigale Airport (IATA: BLQ, ICAO: LIPE) named after the physicist and inventor Guglielmo Marconi, is about 10 km from the city center.

It is the main airport in Emilia-Romagna and one of the main airports in Italy, constantly growing thanks to its strategic geographical position reinforced by high-speed rail lines.

The current airport of Bologna was born from the military one which in 1931 had moved to the area between Borgo Panigale and Calderara di Reno, after having been based in the Prati di Caprara for eighteen years.

On 24 October 1936, in the presence of the Head of Government and after only three hundred and fifty days of work, the new complex was inaugurated, which included seventeen buildings, including four hangars; barracks for over five hundred airmen and one hundred officers; a garage for sixty vehicles, as well as various offices.

Six hundred workers were employed. After the conflict of 1940-1945 nothing or almost nothing remained. The military airport was and still is named after Fausto Pesci, a heroic aviator in the Italian-Turkish war, who died in combat during the First World War.

That airport, named after Fausto Pesci, remained active until the seventies, when the Guglielmo Marconi was inaugurated, because it had now become small and inadequate for the needs of the city. It rose, in fact, 500 meters further west, in an area that has now been used for services.

In 1987 a Concorde F-BVFB from Paris landed in Bologna. The aircraft was chartered for the occasion by a Modena company for its employees.

Between 1987 and 1988 the Concorde will return to Bologna 2 more times.

On 2 July 1990, both Air France and Lufthansa started daily flights to Paris and Frankfurt. In the following years the terminal was completed and both regular and charter lines increased.

In 2019 with 9,405,920 passengers it was the seventh busiest Italian airport.

Map: Guglielmo Marconi Airport of Bologna