Ju 52 1960 1961 DC-9 was the main carrier
MD-82 was based in Maribor In 1953, the
aeroclub built at the current location a substitute grass aerodrome Skoke for aeroclub needs, since the former aeroclub airport Maribor Tezno was too dangerous to fly. During 1953 to 1976, when only a grass airport was operating, over 1,000 pilots were trained at this location by aeroclub flight school. With the desire of the Styrian region to become more connected with the world, an international airport for international traffic was built in 1976 and has two runways: grass and asphalt. The airport was opened for commercial traffic in May 1976. Since then this airport has been the second biggest and the second most important in Slovenia. When Slovenia was a part of
Yugoslavia, the airport was regularly served by state airline
JAT, mainly connecting
Belgrade,
Tivat and the Croatian Adriatic coast airports such as
Dubrovnik and
Split. Moreover,
Misr Overseas Airways also connected it with
Cairo. In the early 1990s, passengers and cargo traffic reached record highs. Around 85,000 passengers and 700 tonnes of cargo were carried per year. In 1999 its runway was renovated, as was the airport's apron in 2000. In 2002, Aerodrome Maribor llc was sold to Prevent Global plc from
Slovenj Gradec, as a majority owner. In 2005 the instrument landing system ILS CAT I and the distribution transformer station were renovated. The airport was later served with scheduled flights by
Slovenian Spirit, an arm of
Styrian Spirit, which offered scheduled flights to
Paris and
Salzburg until March 2006. Styrian Spirit ended operations due to
insolvency. On 8 March 2007,
Ryanair announced that it would commence service between
London-Stansted and Maribor in June 2007, three times weekly. The expectations from this service included an increase in tourist exploration of the region, which has great potential for all-year-round offerings. The service started on 7 June 2007, but ended 27 March 2008. On 22 February 2008, the Government of the Republic of Slovenia decided to rename the Maribor Airport as Maribor Edvard Rusjan Airport. The renaming was made as a result of a suggestion of a Slovene citizen, Silvo Škornik. The airport's new name has been in use since 15 June 2008. The airport's new terminal, which cost some 15 million
euros, opened on 21 November 2012, with a capacity of at least 600,000 pax/year. In 2013, the old terminal was renovated and Prevent Global plc sold Aerodrom Maribor llc to AvioFun Ltd, an aviation company based in
Libeliče. The total number of passengers in 2013 was 15,000, an increase from the previous year. In October 2014, Delavska hranilnica plc bought the airport for 1 million € and became its co-owner. Delavska hranilnica plc had a 57% share and AvioFun Ltd had a 43% share of the company. During the summer of 2015,
Adria Airways operated a seasonal service to London using
London-Southend Airport between June and October with three flights per week. On 9 June 2015, Slovenian
savings bank Delavska hranilnica plc bought the remaining 43% share from AvionFun Ltd and became the sole owner of this airport. In December 2016, Aerodrom Maribor, the operator of the airport, was sold to SHS Aviation. The new owner, which also owns
VLM Airlines, announced its plans to invest up to 300 million euros into the airport. SHS Aviation's main priorities are extending the runway, building a new terminal and launching flights to large European cities as well as a few Chinese cities. In July 2017 SHS Aviation announced two new scheduled destinations from Maribor with its own airline,
VLM Airlines Slovenia:
Split and
Dubrovnik, both in
Croatia. The flights began on 8 August 2017 and were operated until the mid of August 2017. On 18 July 2019 The Ministry of Infrastructure lets the airport to temporary management of the company DRI upravljanje investicij, d.o.o. ==Statistics==