Early years The airport of Bari was originally a military airfield, built in the 1930s, by the
Regia Aeronautica. During
World War II Italian Campaign, it was seized by the
British Eighth Army in late September 1943, and turned into an Allied military airfield. Until the end of the war in May 1945, it was used by the
Royal Air Force and the
United States Army Air Forces Twelfth and
Fifteenth Air Forces both as an operational airfield as well as a command and control base. In addition, the airfield was used by the
Italian Co-Belligerent Air Force (Aviazione Cobelligerante Italiana, or ACI), or Air Force of the South (Aeronautica del Sud), and the
Balkan Air Force. After the war, it was turned over to the postwar Air Force of the
Italian Republic (
Aeronautica Militare Italiana). In the 1960s, it was opened to civil flights and
Alitalia schedules regular flights to Rome,
Catania,
Palermo,
Ancona, Venice. The routes were later taken over by ATI, using a
Fokker F27 airplane. When ATI put into operation the new
DC-9-30 it became necessary to create a new runway, while the military complex was still used as passenger terminal. In 1981, a new building was completed, originally intended to be used as a cargo terminal, but it became in fact the airport's new passenger terminal.
Development since the 1990s In 1990, with the
1990 FIFA World Cup, the runway was extended and the terminal was upgraded, going through a further renovation in 2000. However, the traffic increase showed the infrastructural limitations of the airport and in 2002 the founding stone of the new passenger terminal was laid out. At the same time, flight infrastructures (aircraft parking areas, runway etc.) were upgraded. In 2005, the new terminal was completed and opened to passengers. In 2005, construction works for a new control tower began and they were completed the following year. In 2006, a further extension of the runway was begun, and in 2007, the planning of an extension of the passenger terminals was commissioned. They were upgraded in 2005–2006 with the opening of a new passenger terminal equipped with four jet bridges and a multistorey car park. ==Airlines and destinations==